A 1960s utopian experiment

Sea Ranch’s founding architects were inspired by the indigenous tribes native to the area who believed in living lightly on the land. Sea Ranch is built today upon lands historically occupied by the Pomo and Miwok tribes.

In 1964, a group of architecture faculty at UC Berkeley, were entrusted by developer Al Boeke with ten miles of California coastline three hours north of San Francisco. Their challenge was transforming a 5,200 acre sheep ranch here into a progressive residential community, built in a way that was not only in tune with nature, but driven by nature. The Sea Ranch came to be “the California architectural monument of the 1960s,” in the words of the design historian David S. Gebhard.

Want to learn more?
Utopia Rules at Sea Ranch, a Community Born of ’60s Idealism (NYT, 2015)
Sea Ranch, California’s Modernist Utopia, Gets an Update (NYT, 2019)