Sarah Williams Goldhagen profiles The Sea Ranch; despite its failure as an alternative to suburban sprawl, it is considered a model for its environmentally sensitive, "sublimely beautiful" development.
"To ensure that Halperin's excellent landscape and site plan be respected in perpetuity, Boeke and his collaborators created The Sea Ranch Corporation, which maintains a stringent set of landscaping and architectural guidelines by which any new property owner must abide. Opponents of so called Big Government should be required to come to The Sea Ranch to see the best of what a right-minded, intelligently constructed democracy can produce. The architectural design guidelines are stringent. In Halperin's meadowed rooms, houses must be sited near the property line's edge rather than plunked down in its center, and each house is composed to maximize ocean views for its own inhabitants without blocking such views for adjacent properties."
FULL STORY: In Praise of The Sea Ranch, a Sublimely Beautiful Example of Environmental Architecture
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