You Can Live the Utopian Sea Ranch Fantasy by Booking at the Newly Redesigned Lodge
To visit the new Sea Ranch Lodge is to partake in an increasingly rare California dream. Join us for a tour of the pinnacle of mindful modernist development, and toast this architectural gem.
Thomas J. Story
It’s a misty Saturday afternoon on the Northern California coast, and a man stands on a bluff peering through the viewfinder of a large format camera on a wooden tripod, head draped with black cloth, lens trained on the rocky cliffs and the waves colliding with them as they have for millennia. This particularly photogenic outcropping of the far Western edge of the continent is at Sea Ranch, the groundbreaking residential experiment built in the mid-sixties that set the high bar for mindful land development. He’s been there for hours as the century-plus old camera technology requires, documenting the ancient process of the push and pull of the waves, as if nobody has ever done such a thing, despite the dozen people up the hill shooting the exact same view with their smartphones. Sea Ranch will do that to you: make you see old things with new eyes.
Thomas J. Story
100 yards inland is the Sea Ranch Lodge, the newly renovated hotel and restaurant and community space that serves visitors and residents of Sea Ranch. The parking lot is filled with Teslas and Range Rovers and funky Tacomas. The guest rooms have been exquisitely refreshed by Bay Area designer Nicole Hollis, with a soothing aesthetic that picks up pieces of mid-century design, natural forms, arts and crafts, and Japanese and Scandinavian minimalism, and sets you right: graphic pillows, a Malm fireplace to make things cozy, paper lanterns, smart woodworking, and a timeless rustic California cool vibe. Outside, landscaping by design firm Terremoto subtly incorporates reclaimed local timber and native plantings into the common spaces, creating serene nooks for gazing out at the ocean, across the meadows, or up at the stars.
Thomas J. Story
If you’re not familiar with Sea Ranch, here’s the capsule history: Above the rocky bluffs of northernmost coastal Sonoma County on gently sloping meadows that butt up against redwood groves, is this 3,500-acre utopian housing experiment. Originally built in the 1960s by a group of forward-thinking architects commissioned by developer Al Boeke, Sea Ranch remains one of the most iconic residential developments in the history of modernist architecture. The mandate was to design a community that was graceful and serene and offered restorative immersion in nature while also respecting the nature on which it was nestled. The master planner was Lawrence Halprin, legendary landscape architect who was also responsible for such iconic Western projects at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, and the approach to Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park.
Thomas J. Story
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Sea Ranch anticipated many design and architectural modes we take for granted these days: angled shed roofs. The exterior wood cladding that cycles and re-emerges as a “trend” every 7 years. Clerestory windows placed perfectly to grab light and frame views while preserving privacy. Helvetica as a go-to font for its unpretentious, functional, and handsome clarity. Over-sized colorful supergraphic logos to add color and visual interest when needed before Instagram-worthy was a concept. There were originally condos but mostly homes built in clusters around vast meadows planted with native flora, pine hedgerows to separate each mini community, a lodge where residents could pick up their mail, an airstrip, and a 9-hole golf course at the northern end. Today there are some 1,800 houses at Sea Ranch, but given the scale and design of the development, you’d never know. “To live lightly on the land,” was the stated ethos, and it remains to this day.
Thomas J. Story
There are architectural gems you can tour from the outside and admire theoretically, but the best are immersive, almost-living spaces that envelop you with their purpose: the sweeping titanium curves of Disney Hall’s roof visually expressing the swell of the music within, for example. With the revival of the Lodge, the Sea Ranch is one such grand work of art you can inhabit, if only for a weekend.
Thomas J. Story
But what a weekend it will be: mornings of sipping coffee on the deck, watching the waves crash on the rocks below and sheep grazing the meadows, long ambles on the 40 miles of trails where you’ll pass seal rookeries, piney hedgerows bent by the winds, hawks whirling overhead, redwood forests in the distance, and a community with simple but striking wooden homes patinated by sun, sea, and time. It’s an immersive architectural experience that every design lover should add to their bucket list.
Thomas J. Story
It must be said it takes a pioneer to know one: Sunset and Sea Ranch go way back: From the ‘60s onward, dozens of advertisements promised Westerners the peace of a stay at the Lodge. Over the decades, we honored various homes for their forward-thinking ingenuity: living roofs that cooled the home; decks that smartly blocked the wind while perfectly framing views.
Thomas J. Story
And now today we re-invite our readers to partake in the magic of the place. There’s a feeling you get at Sea Ranch. Or is it a sense memory? A collection of things heard, seen, smelled, and remembered. It’s salty, misty, the roar of the waves. It’s green, rocky, slicked with moss, mottled with barnacles, smelling of rot and promise. It’s the California dream without a surfboard or a soundtrack. It’s primitive and organic and just a coastal drive away.
Thomas J. Story
And if you can’t get away immediately, mix up one of these lovely cocktails they serve to Sea Ranchers and architecturally-minded seekers who find their way to the bar at the Sea Ranch Lodge.
Thomas J. Story
Toast Sea Ranch at Home
Sorcerer Wood
Smoky mezcal and an herby, fruity shrub make for a bracing and refreshing cocktail. The secret ingredient is that cranberry-rosemary shrub, a tangy concoction that you can use in cocktails or mix with soda.
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