This 1972 Sea Ranch Home Was an Untouched Time Capsule Until a Designer Gave It a Much-Needed Update

Sea Ranch, the coastal design utopia north of San Francisco known for its wind-swept bluffs and rustic-modern charm, has been a destination to reflect and recharge for Clara Jung for 15 years. “When my husband and I moved back to San Francisco after law school, we started the tradition of a New Year’s retreat up there. We’d go on hikes and enjoy the quiet and nature, and loved the juxtaposition of the ocean and the forest,” she says. It’s where she went to contemplate big life decisions, like ditching a legal career in favor of interior design. And where she and her husband de-camped at least twice a year to process their victories and heart ache.

Photograph © 2026 Christopher Stark. From Storied Homes: Designs from Banner Day Interiors by Clara Jung. Published by Gibbs Smith.

Photograph © 2026 Christopher Stark. From Storied Homes: Designs from Banner Day Interiors by Clara Jung. Published by Gibbs Smith.

“We tried to have kids for a long time, and that didn’t happen. Sea Ranch was our escape,” she says.

While owning a home in the area was always a dream, well before the Covid-era re-emergence of the community as a destination for creative vacationers, it was just beyond their financial grasp. On a whim, Jung decided to float her wish out to the universe to see if she could find a financial partner willing to take a chance on a shared property. 

Photograph © 2026 Christopher Stark. From Storied Homes: Designs from Banner Day Interiors by Clara Jung. Published by Gibbs Smith.

Photograph © 2026 Christopher Stark. From Storied Homes: Designs from Banner Day Interiors by Clara Jung. Published by Gibbs Smith.

“One day I put it on Instagram stories, saying that I’d like to co-own a place there if anyone was interested,” she says. A former client-turned-friend responded positively, and a partnership was born.

“I manifested it,” Jung laughs.

Photograph © 2026 Christopher Stark. From Storied Homes: Designs from Banner Day Interiors by Clara Jung. Published by Gibbs Smith.

Jung and her husband and their young daughter—another manifested dream!—now share the three-bedroom, two-bath home with another couple that shares expenses but ceded total creative control to Jung. “There are 2.5 attorneys in this partnership, because I don’t practice anymore, so we were very thoughtful about the financial and personal relationship we were entering,” she says. “Everything is split 50/50. We don’t rent it out. We negotiate the calendar. They gave me carte blanche with the design, once we found the right fixer-upper that was as close to the original design we could find. It takes a huge amount of trust, but it works.”

Photograph © 2026 Christopher Stark. From Storied Homes: Designs from Banner Day Interiors by Clara Jung. Published by Gibbs Smith.

Photograph © 2026 Christopher Stark. From Storied Homes: Designs from Banner Day Interiors by Clara Jung. Published by Gibbs Smith.

The house they found was built in 1972 by a prominent Napa winemaker and was a frozen-in-time capsule from the Sea Ranch heyday. The kitchen, including the appliances and the linoleum floor, was original. There was a wine cellar in the basement with decades-old forgotten bottles and a copy of a Sunset-published travel guide about the best coastal road trips that now sits on the coffee table upstairs.

Photograph © 2026 Christopher Stark. From Storied Homes: Designs from Banner Day Interiors by Clara Jung. Published by Gibbs Smith.

Photograph © 2026 Christopher Stark. From Storied Homes: Designs from Banner Day Interiors by Clara Jung. Published by Gibbs Smith.

“I wanted to keep the original wood paneling, and the footprint intact,” she says. “We had to replace most of the floors, and the bathrooms are new. We turned an old darkroom into a larger primary bathroom. But I considered myself a steward of the house and wanted to keep as much of it intact as possible, including the massive stone fireplace in the sunken living room.” The jewel-tone palette in the living room, violet, rust, and deep ocean blue, was pulled from “color stories my clients rejected,” Jung says. 

Photograph © 2026 Christopher Stark. From Storied Homes: Designs from Banner Day Interiors by Clara Jung. Published by Gibbs Smith.

“I have a trail of rejections behind me and I bookmark them in my head,” she says. This is a persuasive argument for future clients to show that there are other color prisms out there. I wanted to do Sea Ranch in my own way. As it’s become more a part of the consciousness, people are falling into this aesthetic of layered neutrals and not really embracing color. I want to show that color has a place in these homes.” 

Photograph © 2026 Christopher Stark. From Storied Homes: Designs from Banner Day Interiors by Clara Jung. Published by Gibbs Smith.

Mixing vintage pieces and handmade accents by local artisans, Jung threaded the needle between honoring the property’s history, celebrating the present, and anticipating the future. “I started my firm 11 years ago, and when we were putting the book, Storied Homes, together, we did about six shoots in a year. I was surprised by the longevity of some of my earlier projects. They didn’t feel overly trendy, which is important.” What hasn’t aged quite as well are Napa wines that had been sitting in the cellar for decades. “We found a 1970s Schramsberg Blanc de Blanc,” she says. “You’re not supposed to keep them for that long, but it was still tasty. You never know. Some of them hold up after all this time.”

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Courtesy of Gibbs Smith

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