In the four or five times I've visited Sea Ranch, I've always stayed as a guest of my brother and…read morehis partner (and possibly once as a guest of my parents), so I've never paid for the things I'm about to criticize. I write that upfront as a caveat emptor/grain-of-salt cliche disclaimer. In short, I'm totally looking four or five different gift horses in the mouth. But honesty is the best policy trumps obsequiousness in my book, at least when it comes to writing reviews, and I know my brother would understand, so on with the review.
It's so disappointing, but that's probably because I didn't come here until I was an adult. If I had started coming as a child, it would still be as magical as Carmel is to me, even though I now know better.
The nature is gorgeous and lush and also sparse and unforgiving. Way fewer large trees grow here than you would expect, but maybe they also merciless cut them down to prevent people's views from being blocked? I don't know. It's just not as green as I expect it to be, but I'm a native Californian, so I love my browns and yellows as well as my greens when it comes to grasses and ground cover more generally, and the coveys of quails that often bathe in the ruts left by car tires delight me every time I see them. Our state birds are so flirtatiously frivolous. It's a wonder they survive at all.
The architecture of most of the houses really appeals to me, despite how annoying some of the architectural failures (mostly small) are. The difference between architecture and art is that taking too many risks in architecture can actually kill people, and thankfully, the worst excesses of bad architecture here have to do with poor material choices, so premature rotting, excessive leaking, etc. You know, stuff that architects designing buildings along an unforgiving shoreline are supposed to take into account? Yes, that stuff.
I love how far apart the houses are from one another, and that there seems to be no rhyme or reason so their relative siting. The entire area just feels like something out of a 1,200-page romance novel set in medieval times or the setting for an RGP video game that I would play too much of as an early teenager or like the entirety of England seemed to me for most of my semi-voracious-reader childhood. It's darkish and spooky and foggy--but not as foggy as you think--and flat. It's really flat. And it's really big.
Getting here from San Francisco is a real chore. I've driven to and from by myself at almost all times of the day except the middle of the night. If you're doing that, make sure you're very well rested, and don't speed. Those curves are just killer. Make sure you bring a lot of books. The last time I was here, I believe there was wifi, but I didn't use it, because this is the kind of place you come to escape the real world. Why would you want to bring the Internet along with you?
The northern part feels far homier than the southern part. I don't know why. It might be less crowded. Or maybe it's the pool. But there might be another pool that I've never been to.
Oh, and the architecture style is its own kind of thing in my mind. So when I see something that looks like it's trying to be a cheap knockoff of Sea Ranch's worn woodsiness, I call it a "Sea Ranch ____." So, for example, I refer to this Starbucks near my parents' house (https://www.yelp.com/biz/starbucks-coffee-whittier-6) as Sea Ranch Starbucks.
I don't think I'd ever fork over the cash to stay here by myself or to host others, but I definitely do enjoy being here when I'm invited, even though the trip to and from here are the parts of Sea Ranch I most dread.
