Dreams Deferred

Before the dream of the ’60s died, it produced The Sea Ranch, an attempt at utopia on California’s northern coast. It also produced the newly renovated Sea Ranch Lodge, which now once again reflects the idealism and design this community is famous for.

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The Sea Ranch was the kind of idea that could’ve only come out of the sixties. 100 miles north of San Francisco, hard along the jagged NorCal coastline, a planned town and housing development — “the most extraordinary country home colony ever” — intended to represent the unvarnished intersection of ideals and aesthetics. Conceived in 1963, it was meant to be architecturally daring, an example of purity and practicality in design as well as ecological sensitivity. A place for quiet meditation and communal focus. A place that felt as natural as the landscapes that surrounded it.

Put simply, Sea Ranch was supposed to be a utopia. There were guidelines that stood as a fiery rebuke of mid-century America’s creeping suburbanism and selfishness, a declaration of principles that called out elitist enclaves like Carmel and Pebble Beach and prioritized modesty and diversity. Something as seemingly insignificant as the graphic design of local signage was given greater weight than any one individual’s most strident needs or wants.

Continuity and context were keystones. Homes were to be designed to accommodate and accentuate the defining natural characteristics of their plot, and in a way that did not unduly disturb their neighbor. Maintaining clear views for each house was paramount, and so was maintaining sensory awareness: the sounds of nature and wildlife, the relationship to sun and wind. This translated into smaller homes, fewer homes, and a community aligned behind the edict that everyone should share in the richness of the place.

I was tempted to talk about the controversies that have befallen Sea Ranch during the 60 years it’s been around. How its initial rollout wasn’t as egalitarian as promised. How parts of the site were eventually over-developed, and individual homes inevitably built much larger than envisioned, or positioned too close to the cliffs, monopolizing sea views. How the demographics have shifted in obvious, perhaps unfortunate ways, with more tech millionaires than quixotic college professors. How personal and financial self-interest seeps into even the most water-tight of manifestos.

But when you visit Sea Ranch today, none of that is readily apparent, nor does it matter. You’d have to have some incredibly high standards for residential land use to look at what’s there now and not be joyously overwhelmed by the interplay between ocean and architecture; you’d have to be intimately familiar with the original Sea Ranch master plan. If you were, you’d notice how well the Sea Ranch Lodge, fresh off a massive renovation, adheres to it.

We wouldn’t blame you for renting a standalone home at The Sea Ranch. What we can’t guarantee is that you’ll always find one true to the spirit of the original Sea Ranch design principles. In some, liberties have been taken, whether through anachronistic decor or grotesque enlargement. The updated lodge, on the other hand, is a pure expression of Sea Ranch’s sixties philosophies. The very first unit built here wasn’t a single-family home, it was actually a complex of homes, called Condominium One. Considered among the most important pieces of 1960s California architecture, Condominium One symbolized the Sea Ranch mantra of “living lightly on the land” by using as little of it as possible for the greatest communal gain.

Condominium One debuted in 1965. The Lodge opened soon after.

Timber-clad walls and ceilings. Simple, angular, barn-like shapes that pay tribute to the agricultural history of the region. Large picture windows that frame unobstructed views of the coast. Space-saving lofts, nooks, and cozy cut-outs for reading and reflecting. These are some of Sea Ranch’s trademark architectural elements, and they’ve been faithfully reinvented at the lodge. Furniture, artwork, textiles — all were chosen with great care to honor the era, many of them crafted by local producers. There’s an excellent restaurant, bar and lounge, a cafe and a general store, all doing double duty as the social centers of the greater Sea Ranch community.

As you walk from the lodge down to the beach, along winding paths that cut through meadows of sea grass and native flowers, you’ll get a sense of Sea Ranch as utopia. As you sit in your room, cuddled up on a cushioned corner-shaped bench, looking out at rocky bluffs and the rumbling Pacific, you’ll develop an intimate understanding of its promise, so unique to where and when it was made. “San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of,” Hunter S. Thompson famously put it in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. “You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . . We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .”

Perhaps no passage in literature more effectively sums up the dream of the sixties and how quickly it began to fade, outfoxed again by the forces of Old and Evil. “So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”

He may as well have been looking at Sea Ranch.

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Images by Daniel Jenkins, a Colorado-based architectural and travel photographer we’re quite fond of. Check out his website and instagram. He is available for bookings and commissions worldwide.