Presented by Alex Michas & Rick Richetta
3 BEDS | 3 BATHS
2,365 SQ.FT. LIVING AREA | 3,328 SQ.FT. LOT
There’s an ease to life at 548 Wesley Avenue that’s increasingly rare—a house with room for the various parts of life, a garden that produces amazingly well, and a particularly lovely stretch of Oakland just outside the door.
Set near the base of Haddon Hill, the house belongs to a neighborhood where the best parts of Oakland feel unusually close. Haddon Hill Cafe and Leaning Tower of Pizza are half a block away. Continuing a block further is Lake Merritt - near enough to become part of everyday life, whether for a morning by the water or an evening watching the lake change with the light. Friday nights bring a different energy to the Oakland Museum, when the food trucks arrive and the gardens fill with people and music. Saturdays have their own ritual at the Grand Lake Farmers Market. The newly renovated Kaiser Center for the Arts is nearby, too, and Lake Merritt BART puts the rest of the Bay within easy reach.
The house itself has grown along with the lives lived inside it. An expanded second floor adds another bedroom and bath, a dedicated office, and a generous family room - space to spread out without losing the intimacy of the original home. There is an occupied rental unit with its own rear entrance, adding another layer of possibility. And the garage is the sort people tend to wish they had: room for cars, certainly, but also a workshop, bikes, tools and an impressive amount of storage.
Then there is the garden, which borders on the improbable. This is not a yard with a lemon tree tucked into a corner. There are two kinds of pluots, three kinds of apples, a Kadota fig, Fuyu persimmon, peach, nectarine, blueberries, red currants, tangerine, orange, pomegranate, mulberry, and two varieties of lemon. The harvest changes with the seasons; the pleasure of stepping outside and finding something ready to pick does not.
That may be the particular charm of 548 Wesley. So much of what makes life here good is close at hand: coffee down the block, the lake around the corner, pizza on a weeknight, music and food on a Friday evening, the farmers market on Saturday morning - and, back at home, a piece of fruit pulled from a tree in your own garden. It’s a house with an unusual amount to offer, but its greatest luxury may be how little effort it takes to enjoy it.
Dear Home Buyers,
Thank you for your interest in our house at 548 Wesley Ave. My wife and I are selling because I am retiring from my job with the State of California, and we are relocating out of the area. I have lived at 548 Wesley for the last 21 years, and I will miss many things about the house and neighborhood as well as the many fantastic amenities in Oakland and the Bay Area. In the following paragraphs, I will share with you some of the things that I will miss that you may want to know about as you consider purchasing our house.
The house has an attached in law unit (a studio with separate entrance) that has been continuously rented during my period of ownership. We have found this small rental unit to be a highly desirable asset for the property that provides advantages beyond just the rent collected. We have been fortunate over the years to have selected outstanding tenants whom we have trusted to watch over the property, water plants, and collect mail while we have been traveling. There is a wonderful woman living in the studio now, and you can find out more about her and her plans in a separate letter she has written. You will learn from her letter that she does not plan on staying more than a year or two so that the studio would be available either to keep on the rental market or integrate into the rest of the house as desired.
My wife and I are rather obsessed with fruit trees, and we have done our best to squeeze as many as we can on the land available. The fruit includes: two kinds of pluots, three kinds of apples, Kadota fig, two kinds of lemon, Fuyu persimmon, peach, nectarine, blueberry, red currant, tangerine, orange, pomegranate, and mulberry. You will enjoy plentiful fruit roughly from June through November and also lemons essentially year-round. There is also a gorgeous Magnolia tree outside the dining room window that is an explosion of pale pink flowers in the early Spring. When the flowers are replaced by broad leaves, the dining room becomes a cozy place for an afternoon coffee or tea when dappled light from the afternoon sun filters through the lush green leaves in spring and summer.
On sunny days, my wife and I love to sit at a small table and take our daytime meals on the small patio outside the front door. One would be surprised how often one can do this even in winter because of Oakland’s agreeable climate. From this perch we enjoy the view of the two neighborhood gardening projects — in the middle of the street (planters to calm traffic) and on the hillside of the vacant lot opposite our house. We also enjoy saying hello to neighbors walking by on the sidewalk below. We have enjoyed excellent relations with all of our immediate neighbors, and we will miss them and the sense of community. We help each other out when needed and watch out for each other.
Perhaps what we will miss most about the house is its super location in the heart of a vibrant part of Oakland, a location that is very hard to beat in terms of easy access to a wide range of amenities. The photo at left was taken from my drone flying directly over the house perhaps 100 meters in the air, and it illustrates the proximity to Lake Merritt and downtown Oakland in the background. There are not many places in Oakland with this much shopping, dining, and recreation opportunities and entertainment clustered so close together.
We hope the new owners will enjoy all that this house and surroundings have to offer, and we wish them peace and happiness as they make 548 Wesley their home.
Warmly,
Richard and Susanne
Cleveland Heights is one of those Lake Merritt neighbourhoods where the lifestyle is built in — walkable streets, a gentle hillside perch, and the kind of daily access to the lake that makes routines feel like rituals. Sitting along the eastern side of Lake Merritt, it blends the calm of a residential pocket with quick, easy proximity to the energy of Grand Lake, Uptown, and downtown.
The neighbourhood’s geography is part of its charm: streets climb and curve as you move away from the water, creating little view moments and a tucked-in feel on the quieter blocks. You’ll find a mix of housing that reflects that evolution — early-20th-century bungalows and character homes, alongside apartment buildings and small multi-unit properties that make the area feel lively and lived-in.
