Customer Reviews

The Sea Ranch

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Go north of San Francisco along the coast for a hundred miles or so. Buy 4,000 acres of timber and grazing land. You'll find that you have quite a setting for a housing development. Add rules that say how the house must fit into the land and the scenery and you have quite a housing development in quite a setting. Beginning in 1963 this is just what happened. And over the resulting 40 years quite a stunning set of houses has been built there.

This book is a photographic and descriptive journey though several of these houses, each of which were designed to fit into that exact landscape. It's also the story of the building of this "super development." The story is told with 200 color illustrations, 170 black and white spread over some 304 pages.

Each of the houses described suit their place. This is not to say that they are alike, but that they all just seem to fit. It would be a spectacular place to live.

Essays by Donald Canty and Lawrence Halprin accompany beautiful black and white and color shots of California's architectural wonders of the coast which comprise the exclusive Sea Ranch community of homes. Ecologically inspired planning and innovative architectural dreams and designs went into the formation of the California's Sea Ranch community, which sprawls across several thousand acres of land. This could easily have been a picture presentation alone, but the fine house-by-house considerations of design, plan, and history makes it much more, and The Sea Ranch will be revered by architectural reference collections in art libraries.

As someone who has visited the Sea Ranch for about 20 years, this book is a tribute to what is possible regarding developing homesites yet retaining the natural landscape. This honors the minimalist approach to constructing homes and the impact on the environment. If you're interested in architecture or just a love of the Northern California coast this is a beautiful book that can be enjoyed for years.

Both books were shipped quickly and were received in perfect condition. The Sea Ranch has been a summer vacation destination of our family's since 1980 and this book has already become a family favorite.