1913 1913
Luxury by the Sea Luxury by the Sea
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Grammy-Award Winner Alan Silvestri’s Carmel Highlands Estate
By Brett Wilbur
Set on a stunning knoll in the mythical Carmel Highlands with sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean, a Central Coast estate has provided decades of inspiration for Grammy-award winning composer Alan Silvestri and his wife Sandra. Enjoying a rare privacy afforded by being set on 14 acres between two quiet roads, the couple spent more than 10 years restoring the main house and three guest properties, while working and living on site, raising three children, and launching Silvestri Vineyards.
In the late 1980s, tiring of Hollywood, the Silvestris visited a friend in Carmel and wondered if they could relocate to the Central Coast while Alan continued his flourishing career composing soundtracks for films like “Romancing the Stone,” “Back to the Future” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”
“We were struck by how beautiful it was, and the air and the ocean and the wildness and everything,” Sandra shares. “We’d been married 10 years and had a fiveyear-old and so this was kind of a natural thing."
While visiting 72 Fern Canyon Road, just minutes south of Carmel-by-the-Sea in the tranquil Carmel Highlands neighborhood, on the eastern side of Highway 1, the couple were awed by the incredible setting. Magical structures crafted of stone and wood promised a variety of creative environments for Alan’s composing, while the jaw dropping vistas of Point Lobos set in the misty air reminded them of the plein air art captured on site by former residents. There was also an old stone wall on the property that served as a personal touchpoint. Since he was a child, Alan’s mother spoke of her longtime wish to have a house with such a structure.
“[Everything] kind of fit into his historical profile with his family,” Sandra says. “We just went for it. It was kind of a big risk.”
Alan concurs, noting that moving into “a magnificent place from days gone by” in Carmel was exciting, but an uncertain proposition for his career.
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TheForrestGump.CastAway.MummyReturns. Avengers.NightattheMuseum.Abyss. Polar Express. Back to the Future. Bodyguard.
“We took a leap,” he says. “There was no doubt about that. We didn’t know how my business was going to react to it. The first confirmation we had was [while I was composing] my first film in the house, "The Abyss." When we saw [director] James Cameron driving down the driveway, we knew, ‘Okay, he was willing to come here and maybe this will work out.’”
After sorting out that Alan could thrive in his career while composing on the property, the couple, who have now been married 48 years, found themselves “embarking on an adventure” as they started restoring the property.
Nicknames for each building are based upon past and present uses: the main house, with a total of 5,697 square feet of living space, along with a large basement used as a wine cellar and garage, served as the eventual home for the family. The Silvestris expanded the footprint of the house slightly, which now offers 5 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. There are also multiple family spaces, two offices, and a large family room complete with a Steinway.
“I had an in-house office, and we had a piano in the living room, so I'd come down at the end of the day and work on the thematic material for every one of the movies while hanging out with Sandra and the doggies or the kids,” Alan says. “Short of recording with the orchestra, everything was written and created in this space.”
A small guest house, known as “The Cottage,” or “The Cedar Box” was once a schoolhouse for local children and is an intimate 774 square feet.
“When we bought it, it had girls’ and boys' bathrooms and cubbies and a fire alarm,” Sandra notes. Alan wrote the score for “Night at the Museum” in the building, along with many more.
“I remember working on “The Mummy Returns”, starring Brendan Fraser, in The Cedar Box and it was just incredibly cozy,” Alan says.
“It’s like you're in a little log cabin and it just has this warm fantastic feel.”
The castle-like structure known as “Turret House,” is 641 square feet and serves as Alan’s studio, with a stainless-steel spiral staircase in one of the turrets leading down to a garage underneath.
“When I’m writing, I kind of have to enter into these characters,” Alan explains. “I re-
member sitting in The Turret House writing the original “Avengers” theme, and [getting into the head of ] Thanos, and then walking down from the writing room and Sandra saying, ‘What’s up? Why do you look kind of grey?’ I said, ‘Well, I've been killing Natasha [played by Scarlett Johansson] all day long. I can't stand it anymore.’”
The Guest House, also known as The Offices, has three levels totaling 5,063 square feet, with a theater on the top level, a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment with a full kitchen and laundry on the main level, and multiple offices and a recording studio in the basement. Alan composed the score for “Forrest Gump” in the basement of the Guest House. There is also a detached garage with over 1,000 square feet of space. The sum of all the buildings creates a combined total of over 12,000 square feet, 8 bedrooms, 10 full and two half baths, and 7 garage spaces.
Alan Silvestri at work in his home office
“We were struck by how beautiful it was, and the air and the ocean and the wildness and everything..."
Stories of prior residents and visitors, including painter Ada Howe Kent, an Italian philanthropist, and college students who took classes in the main house, which was once Stanford University’s Behavioral Sciences Institute, have poured in over the years.
“It’s a well-loved house in the community, because people come up to us all the time and say, ‘Oh, I got married there,’ or ‘I went to language classes there,’” Sandra shares.
Elements left in the home were carefully restored or updated as needed, using local materials, including Highlands’ stone, and local artisans. The Ahwahnee hotel in Yosemite National Park and a Craftsman sensibility influenced the project design.
Meanwhile, Alan more than proved he could simultaneously live on site during construction while composing for hits like “Back to the Future II and III,” “Father of the Bride,” “Super Mario Bros.,” “Parent Trap,” “Castaway,” “The Mummy Returns,” “Lilo & Stitch,” “The Polar Express,” “Night at the Museum,” “The A-Team,” “Captain America,” “The Avengers,” and many, many more.
“We were up for [this endeavor],” Alan says. “We knew that the land, the site, was very special and we knew that if life went a certain way, and if we had means, we could at our own pace start to work through each of the structures, which is what we did. We did it always with the intent of a renovation consciousness, rather than, ‘Let’s get rid of all this and do something new.’ We wanted to restore what it was, and of course we made lots of improvements as we did.”
An original arch motif carried throughout the home was duplicated wherever possible, found in pocket doors, barstools, window panes, and more. The shape became the Silvestri Vineyards logo when the couple purchased land in Carmel Valley and started growing grapes, eventually adding a tasting room in Carmel-by-the-Sea.
“What Sandra did with that motif design-wise was pure music consciousness, because it is all variations on a theme, “Alan shares. “It is a central core design element that was part of the original property and she just took that and placed it everywhere, just like I would do with a piece of music, a theme in a film, where you would weave it through the entire score, and make it slower, faster, brighter, played by a solo instrument, played by all the strings…She did the exact same thing with the motif in the house. It’s in the concrete of the pool, it's in all the windows, it's in drawer pulls, it's in dish racks, it's disguised in the railings. It’s permutations of this thematic element, and I know from my musical experience that it brings a kind of cohesion and connective tissue to a piece of art.”
As discoveries and issues with renovating came up, the Silvestris were happy to hop from building to building in a construction timeline that included starting with building a dream kitchen in the main house for Sandra, then an ocean-view swimming pool with a waterslide for the children, and next, a tennis court for Alan’s father, who had wanted one his entire life. Alan’s parents spent the last 25 years of their lives living on site with the family, a fact Alan notes brought much joy and peace to the extended family. Being able to work steps away not only maintained familial closeness but allowed for constant supervision of the construction.
– Sandra Silvestri
“I think there's a profound effect to be surrounded by beauty…in Carmel, you just have to walk out the door and it's not just a bit beautiful—it's spectacularly, overwhelmingly beautiful.”
–Alan Silvestri
“I just always loved being around, and we actually loved the idea that we did not have to leave the property during this renovation, which took over 10 years, because literally at the end of the day when everybody leaves, you walk down and it's like, ‘Why is that plug not centered in the middle of the wall?’” Alan reflects. “We would catch all of these things every day and it allowed us to get the project more of the way we wanted it to be.”
Throughout the entire project, misaligned plugs and all, the environment provided a centering and inspirational effect for Alan’s work.
“I think there's a profound effect to be surrounded by beauty,” Alan says. “I think the way folks manage that in a city environment like New York, for instance, is that you have so many institutions that are sources of beauty: concert halls, museums…In Carmel, you just have to walk out the door and it's not just a bit beautiful—it's spectacularly, overwhelmingly beautiful.”
When composing the soundtrack for the film, “Here,” Alan found echoes of his own life surrounding him.
“I was working on the scene with Robin Wright and Tom Hanks and looking down at the place where my mom and dad were sitting next to each other in the exact same way,” he recalls. Other films were similarly reflected in his environment.
“When doing “Castaway,” I was looking out the window at Point Lobos and so much of that geography was inspirational,” he says. “I think it had a tremendous effect on how the notes came out.”
Currently working on the newest Avengers films that star Robert Downey Jr. as “Doctor Doom,” Alan shares that at times, all the beauty around him can be temporarily distracting for certain kinds of creative work.
“In The Turret House, I have this big view of the main house and beautiful greenery and the ocean, but I have the blinds down,” he laughs. “When I was composing the scene where Natasha Romanoff was hanging off the ledge in “Avengers: Endgame” and it was the day she dies, I didn’t really want to see Point Lobos. But when the day is over and you pour a glass of wine, then you go, now I want to see Point Lobos and that beautiful Pacific Ocean.”
"...when the day is over and you pour a glass of wine, then you go, now I want to see Point Lobos and that beautiful Pacific Ocean.”
–Alan Silvestri
FERN CANYON
A place where inspiration thrives
www.FernCanyonCarmel.com
Commanding breathtaking views of the coastline stretching from Point Lobos to sunsets across the vast Pacific Ocean, this captivating, private 14-acre estate in the picturesque Carmel Highlands is surrounded by a peaceful forested landscape, where it has long served as a source of inspiration for Grammy-Award winning composer Alan Silvestri, whose work includes iconic scores for Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, Night at the Museum and The Avengers. The centerpiece of the property is a beautifully reimagined Craftsman-style main residence, distinguished by its unique architectural character and exquisite craftsmanship. Timeless elements such as locally sourced jade, stone, and redwood are seamlessly woven into the design, creating a harmonious blend of elegance and authenticity. Expansive decks invite you outdoors to enjoy the stunning ocean setting with a swimming pool and hot tub, impeccably landscaped grounds, and a private tennis/pickleball court, all enjoying spectacular views. The estate also features three distinct guesthouses, each with its own story to tell. Among them are the historic Carmel Highlands schoolhouse and the whimsical "Turret House," reminiscent of a fairytale castle, offering versatile spaces for family, guests or creative pursuits. Just a short drive from the charm of Carmel, this extraordinary property combines natural splendor with meticulous design, offering a rare opportunity to experience both inspiration and serenity.
Read about the history of Fern Canyon on page 35
presented by Shelly Mitchell Lynch
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