The last 10 miles of the north end of the Sonoma County coast is an area called Sea Ranch. It is a beautiful area, with beautiful beaches and unique houses. And it has a unique history. An interesting part of that history happened while I was growing up and living in the area, so I have long been interested to learn the details. I figured that this winter I would not be able to kayak as much as usual, and I would use the time to find out some local history, perhaps as I kayaked past it all. Instead, I found other things to do with the time, and it took me all winter to gather the few facts (and opinions) in the following essay.
From 1845 to 1855, this strip of coastline at the top end of the Sonoma coast was grazed by transient German ranchers. After 1955, it was reportedly overgrazed with cattle until it was considered unusable by 1903. During this time and until 1910 it was logged until the trees were all gone. This is the period where Black Point was a "doghole" port. Small schooners would navigate into a cove here, tie up to cables strung between the cliffs, and take on lumber to ferry south to San Francisco. Canvas chutes would be hung from the cliff-top to the boat, and boards of lumber would be slid down the chute onto the ship one at a time. The particular cove used here was called "Binlers Landing", but the name is not used on any modern maps I have seen. Sometime around 1910, the land was sold for 6 times its current appraised value to a utopian religious colony. But the utopians soon realized that they could never make enough money off this land to pay off their loans, and left after one year. After 1916, this stretch of coast was used by sheep ranchers, until it was sold to developers in 1964. The developers bough this beautiful stretch of shoreline property, put in roads and utilities, subdivided and sold the property to a bunch of rich people who wanted to build dream houses out in the country. From some of the reports I have read about the time, the developers were paragons of environmental conservation, especially considering that all this was started in the 1960's. Without pressure from environmental groups, without regulations imposed on them from big federal or state organizations, the developers chose to produce a minimum of impact on the environment. People who bought lots here were required to build houses that blended into the natural setting. Many locally famous architects built houses here and many of them ended up living at Sea Ranch for different lengths of time. You occasionally hear people talking about the "Sea Ranch Style" of architecture. In the original plan for the subdivision, (before pressure from activists and regulators and bureaucrats) the developers set aside 100 acres of land and beaches on the north end of Sea Ranch to be donated to the county as a new public park. However, being environmentally and socially conscious was not enough to save the developers and their clients from activists.
A bunch of Socialists objected to rich people owning private property, especially if it was scenic property on the coast, and did everything they could to use the State to steal land from the Sea Ranch developers and owners. In 1968, there was a county proposition battle to pass a local law requiring Sea Ranch to allow public access across their land to the beaches. The proposition failed, and some of the proponents, including Ralph Nader and one of his organizations, lamented that the public would probably never have access to these beaches. But then in the 1970's, the California Coastal Commission was formed, and they were given power to refuse building permits anywhere in the state where there was contention about access to the shore. Namely: Sea Ranch. The state and county bureaucracy was used as a tool to prevent the property owners from using their property for the purpose for which they had bought it. Personally, I think this was CRIMINAL, and should have been a violation of the federal constitution. The California Constitution does provide that the public cannot be excluded from the right of way to all navigable waters and frontage or tidal lands. It is unclear if this "right of way" means the right to get to the water, or the more likely right to navigate in the waters. (The second interpretation is more likely because the law goes on to talk about how nobody can destroy or obstruct free navigation of such waters). But the constitution does not state the details of how the public gets to the water to use this access. I'd be perfectly happy interpreting my rights as the right to land my kayak on the beaches and camp from time to time. But to a Socialist, this means that they have the right to steal land from private citizens who have the misfortune to own land between the public road and the public shore. The Sea Ranchers knew when they bought their property that they did not own the beach or the water, but they did originally expect to be able to build houses on the parcels they did own. And they did object to people traipsing through their yards to get to the beach, so they were the only ones who had CONVENIENT access to the beaches. I would be perfectly happy if the state raised my taxes and used the money to buy private land between the road and the beach from willing property owners. I have a few personal moral problems with eminent domain, where the state takes land from unwilling property owners, and then compensates them for this taking of property as required by the federal constitution. But in the Sea Ranch case, the land had already been parceled out and completely sold to individuals. Before this criminal abuse of state power, the county government had been perfectly happy to accept the 100 acre donation of the north end of the subdivision, (which they could never have afforded to buy on their own), and had lead the owners to believe that they would be allowed to build on their own property. Then the Coastal Commission abused its power and held building permits over the heads of these individual citizens as blackmail to try to get them to deed land and access rights over to the state.
This land had been private ranch land for over a hundred years with no trespassing signs on it the whole time. The current situation was no different: Why suddenly decide to make life miserable for a bunch of rich people now? The 10 miles of coastline between Sea Ranch and Salt Point State park, for example, is still private land to this day, and still has NO TRESPASSING signs on it every 10 feet. Fortunately for the owners of this ranch land, they have no plans to build new structures on it, so the state has no lever to force them to give up their property rights yet. If the state wants access to this land, they could do as I suggest: raise our taxes and purchase it. Of course, the state cannot afford to do this. Rather, it would be political suicide to suggest raising taxes for this or any other purpose. It would be much easier to make life miserable for some small group of citizens until they knuckle under and give in to the blackmail.
After over a decade of lawsuits and refused building permits, a compromise was finally reached: The Sea Ranch owners would put aside land for small parking lots and access trails to the beaches. Of course now the county has to maintain these parking lots, toilets, and trails, which they cannot really afford to do. At first, they charged a dollar day use permit to park at most of the trail heads and $3.00 at some, but this really doesn't cover the costs. Over the years, the price crept up to $3.00 for day use at all of these beaches. This is great for the Sea Ranchers, because 99% of the public that drives by will see the $3.00 sign and refuse to stop. So they have their private beaches, and only have to put up with an occasional hearty individual who is willing to pay $3.00 and hike a half a mile through their back yards to get to the beach. And back yards it is: I assume that a bunch of Sea Ranchers had to give up 7 feet (average) of their property to put in these trails, and larger chunks of flesh were removed to put in the parking lots and toilets. Would you want a state owned open-pit toilet in your back yard?
A word to the wise: one of the compromises with the owners was to limit the total number of people using the access: Many of these beach parking lots have only 4 stalls for cars. If you park outside of these 4 spaces, you will get a ticket. Even if you and two other families arrive together and park 3 cars in two of the generous spaces, the car that straddles the white line will get a ticket, and it doesn't count if you paid your $3.00.
I grew up while all this was going on, and it is probably partially responsible for many of my libertarian and generally irreverent attitudes about THE STATE. It is also probably responsible for my use of "socialist" as if it was a 4 letter word. And my attitudes about the county building inspection planning and health departments, who I hold in slightly lower esteem than the Nazis of the W.W.II atrocities. I commonly joke that I would sooner turn in my neighbors to the Nazis as secret Jews than report their illegal construction projects to the county planing department. But its not true: I wouldn't turn the Jews in either.
The result at Sea Ranch is rather strange: The toilets are built in the Sea Ranch Style of most of the houses: Sloping roofs with no eves, natural wood surfaces, and useless walls jutting out from the corners with the roof line continuing down these walls. You hike across private roads sometimes. You hike past private trails that you are not allowed to explore (apparently they have a network of trails along the coast). You hike past the back yards of a bunch of designer houses, and I for one feel a little intrusive doing this. But some of the beaches are rather nice, so I'll describe them as I kayak to and from them, and you may wish to visit them despite the cost, the hike, and the weirdness.