Ranch Style

Designer Catherine Kwong channels the spirit of the 1970s in her renovation of a classic Sea Ranch home for her young family

- MAYER RUS

As the COVID-19 pandemic roiled the world in 2020, Catherine Kwong succumbed to the siren call of The Sea Ranch, the quietly radical planned community that sprang up in the 1960s along 10 miles of glorious Northern California coastline. The landmark development—conceived by a group of pioneering Bay Area architects and planners as a progressive haven centered on harmony with the natural environment— provided the perfect pastoral escape hatch for the San Francisco-based interior designer and her family. “I’ve always been obsessed with The Sea Ranch from an architectural point of view. It casts such a spell— letting nature envelop you as you’re cradled in this incredible landscape right by the ocean,” Kwong says.

1. KWONG'S SON AND DAUGHTER, MILES AND JULIET, IN THE BUNK ROOM; BLANKETS BY PENDLETON.