A few weeks back I had the pleasure of visiting friends who lives an idyllic life on the Northern California coast at The Sea Ranch. Sea Ranch is located on an amazing 7 mile stretch of coast about 2-1/2 hours North of San Francisco. It is a fantastic development designed and planned in the 1960′s by several well known architects . Modern, cedar sided, angular homes are nestled in the hedgerow to keep vast expanses of the native coastal meadow in tact. Charles Moore, Joseph Esherick and William Turnbull are a few of the architects who developed the iconic Sea Ranch style. A quote I came across from one of the founding architects in an NY Times article sums up the style in a fairly humorous and honest way. “Buildings were meant to be like geodes, ordinary rocks on the outside with the inside going gangbusters.” I especially love this quote because of what I experienced on my latest trip. My friends, Peter Jenny- an architect and Scott Graf- a landscape designer, have found their niche at Sea Ranch and every visit I get wonderful tours and bits of history as they learn more and more about this wonderful place. This visit, Peter took me to his newest obsession, the Moonraker Athletic Center by Charles Moore, one of the original buildings.
The building is pretty interesting and has a very strong architectural concept but what I was totally blown away by was what was inside. As you enter the men’s locker room you are greeted by a very narrow hallway and huge, bright Supergraphics! They lead you down the hall and into a tall changing room with different levels and on every wall is more graphics. The graphics were part of the original design and were created by Barbara Stauffacher Solomon, the designer of all The Sea Ranch graphics. She was also an influential designer of the Supergraphics movement.
The men’s locker room is multi leveled filled head to toe with graphics while the women’s locker room (below) is about a quarter the size, one level and has much more modest graphics. Interesting right?
Thank you Peter for the fun & inspiration!
