Hope Ranch

Hope Ranch is a relatively private place to live, with lot sizes at nearly two acres minimum, and houses beginning at 3,000+ sq.ft. and up, and listings on the market between 4 million to 30+ million. Hope Ranch members are fortunate to have access to a golf course, country club, private tennis courts, stables, miles of horse trails and private beach. Hope Ranch Beach is only accessible from a gated entrance, or by walking along the beach from Hendry’s to the south, or from More Mesa bordering to the north. The Hope Ranch Beach poster shows the cliffs along More Mesa to the north. With hidden access points to get down to the beach from the cliff above, More Mesa soon became the nude beach of the area. There were only a few Hope Ranch homes that lay atop the cliffs, and only one, the last one, the furthest one north, had a view of that section of beach and the land on top of the ‘Mesa’ was [at that time] undeveloped. The dream job for the Santa Barbara gardener was to land a contract with the last Ranch home on the cliff, the one that bordered Mora Mesa. My friend was on a job at the very house I speak of. He was also a regular at More Mesa, so dropping his brush in a bucket of paint at the sound of the noontime bell wasn’t going to happen. The problem here is the size of the property. Nobody wanted to work in the front, can’t see the beach, in particular More Mesa beach from the front yard of a property that large. I can imagine the house with beautiful landscaping, manicured lawns, colorful flowerbeds…all in the back with a front yard full of weeds, uncut grass, and dead azeillas.

My friend described it to me this way…
All the work in the front had to be done early, although no one wanted to work in the front of the house at all. Try to do the front while it’s still overcast, before the sun breaks through, before the beach goers come out to sun. But no matter where a gardener was on the property at 11:59 am, you could bet the farm on where he’d be at 12:01 pm – plastered against the backyard wall, straining to look down at More Mesa beach. “When the clock struck noon, they’d head for the back. The lot was over 2 acres, but that just meant some had to run faster.
Twelve o’clock noon – a lone rake standing in the front yard begins to lean forward… out-of-breath Pedro has made it to the back fence where he’ll spend his lunch hour looking down at the sunbathers below… slowly, the rake falls forward and hits the ground.