How Do You Update a Landscape as Iconic as Sea Ranch? For Terremoto, Less Was More

It was early 2020 when landscape architecture firm Terremoto first started working at iconic 1960s development Sea Ranch. In fact, it was the week Covid-19 hit that Terremoto partner Story Wiggins was on her first site visit for the project, wondering, half-jokingly to herself, if she should just not stay at the landscape utopia she found herself in. 

Originally developed in the 1960s and 1970s by a heavy-hitting design team that included architects Joseph Esherick and Charles Moore, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, and graphic designer Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, the community was envisioned as a place where people could live lightly on the land, preserving the area’s natural beauty. Following a masterplan by Halprin, the community was planned with about 1,800 angular, timber-frame buildings, each clad in untreated fir or redwood that would weather over time.  

And while the buildings were designed to age, more meaningful change on such a well-known property presented specific challenges. How do you make meaningful improvements without disrupting the qualities that made it special in the first place? What's the right balance between consistency and novelty, old and new? 

These questions were addressed when one of the community’s two main commercial buildings, The Lodge, was thoughtfully renovated following new ownership in 2018. The surrounding landscape needed the same attention, and so Terremoto was brought in to address new ADA access, new plantings, and a revamp of the utility yard. A second phase soon followed starting in 2023, which focused on the landscape around the community’s second lodge building, where the guest rooms are.