It’s a gorgeous day as I turn onto Highway 1. I’m focused on the curves of this legendary road, but dramatic views of the Pacific are screaming for my attention. The drive from San Francisco is part of the adventure of visiting Sea Ranch, a 1960s-era one-of-a-kind place with cult status for design and nature lovers like myself. Its main public center, the Lodge, recently reopened with a refresh, including a remodeled restaurant, a new café, expansions to its lounge, bar, and general store, and cultural programs like jazz concerts and art shows.
In the ’60s, Sea Ranch was where an emerging environmental movement collided with Modernist design. While many of its ideas later became mainstream, this planned community was a radical departure from conventional luxury resort and suburban real estate developments of that time.
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The Sea Ranch Lodge overlooks the Pacific
Maverick developer Al Boeke assembled a visionary team of Bay Area architects, young turks Charles W. Moore, Joseph Esherick, William Turnbull, Donlyn Lyndon, Richard Whitaker, and landscape architect Lawrence Halprin. Their job was to transform a run down sheep ranch, located on a remote 10 miles of wild Sonoma coast. The notion of “living lightly on the land”—a practice attributed to the Indigenous Pomo people of Northern California—inspired their designs. Sea Ranch embraced sustainability long before the word became part of our everyday vocabulary. A covenant even promoted owners as stewards of the land. Cooperative living meant oceanfront, fields, and walking trails were designated “commons” areas.
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