“Old house” can mean a lot of different things in Idyllwild.
We have homes built in nearly every decade since the turn of the last century. Some are tiny early cabins that were built when Idyllwild was still very much a mountain outpost. Others came along in the decades that followed, with a particularly big building boom in the 1960s. So when you're looking at homes here, you might walk through a cabin that's more than 100 years old in the morning and a relatively modern home that afternoon.
The oldest home I have personally sold was built in 1923.
And when I say old, I mean old.
It was a tiny cabin in remarkably original condition. There was no central heating system. It still had knob-and-tube wiring. Even the original water-heating system was there: a large tank mounted high on the kitchen wall, with pipes running into the fireplace so the fire could heat the water.
By modern standards, there was a very long list of things wrong with that cabin.
But it was also incredibly special.
It sat on about half an acre along the creek, surrounded by trees, and had somehow made it through a century without anyone remodeling all of its history out of it.
The buyers understood what they were buying. They purchased it about three years ago and have been working on it ever since. They recently called me to say they're finally nearing the finish line and are excited to actually start using the place.
I also sold the house next door, built in 1950 by the same family that had built the 1923 cabin.
That one had its own decades of deferred maintenance. No meaningful updating. Plenty to deal with. Like its older neighbor, it was sold as-is.
Those are extreme examples, but they're also part of the housing stock here.
A large percentage of Idyllwild homes aren't new, and many have lived several different lives. They've been added onto, repaired, remodeled, neglected, loved, remodeled again, and occasionally subjected to some truly creative home improvement.
Which is why I think it's important to say this:
Old houses are allowed to be old.
An inspection of a 1940s cabin isn't supposed to produce a punch list that turns it into a house built in 2026.
The floors might not be perfectly level. The doors might not all be square. You may find old repairs, obsolete materials, dated systems, strange little additions and evidence of several generations of owners solving problems in several generations of ways.
Some of those things matter.
Some don't.
Age isn't an excuse for an active leak, dangerous wiring, structural failure, significant rot or a system that has reached the end of its useful life. Those are real issues and buyers need to understand them.
But there's also a difference between a problem with an old house and the simple fact that it's an old house.
That's part of what inspections and due diligence are for: figuring out which is which.
And with an older home, a qualified home inspector who has experience inspecting older houses is a must. Older construction comes with materials, systems and building methods that simply aren't found in newer homes. You want someone who recognizes what they're looking at, understands what is typical for the era, and knows the difference between something that's merely old and something that deserves further investigation.
I don't think the goal when buying an older Idyllwild home should be to make every old thing disappear. It's to understand the house in front of you. Learn what needs attention now, what may need attention later, and what has simply been sitting there doing its job for the last 60, 80 or 100 years.
Because sometimes the crooked floor is a problem.
And sometimes it's just a crooked floor.
