The shape of Discovery Bay
Nowhere else in this county is built like it. The community was cut out of Kellogg Creek and the surrounding sloughs so that homes could sit on navigable water, and the great majority of them do, with a dock, a boat lift and sliding glass facing Indian Slough or one of the interior channels. That glass is most of the job. Spray, river silt and hard water leave a mineral haze on it that a general-purpose cleaner just moves around.
The rest follows from the boat. Dock grit and dried algae come in on shoes and bare feet, so entry floors and the first stretch of the great room take the worst of it. Fishing gear, wet towels and life jackets live in the laundry room from April to October. Homes inside the Discovery Bay Country Club gates add a check-in step, and it is better arranged before a crew is sitting at the callbox.
What Discovery Bay homes are like to clean
The waterfront stock runs 2,200 to 3,800 square feet over two floors, four or five bedrooms, with the living space and primary suite oriented toward the channel and a rear elevation that is mostly glass. Interiors lean to tile and stone downstairs because of the traffic off the dock. Off-water homes in the newer inland tracts are smaller, nearer 1,800 square feet. Summers are hot and still; winter brings river fog and mildew on north-facing bathroom ceilings.