Article taken from the The
L.A Times.com
The Last Perfect Place
This long article from the Los
Angeles Times "West" magazine provides useful background concerning
the large Bixby Ranch at Point Conception, its recent sale, and potential
future.
(This entire article is nine pages (plus photographs) and
is available here...
THE LAST
PERFECT PLACE 
)
May 13, 2007
There was much heavy sighing and some collective head-scratching when the Bixby Ranch, a majestic coastal property belonging to the family that once owned all of what is now Long Beach and parts of Irvine and Palos Verdes, was sold in January for close to $140 million, a record for noncommercial real estate in California.
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The 25,000-acre Santa Barbara landholding had been slumbering for nearly a century as a respected cattle operation, a rustic getaway for the Bixby heirs and their friends, a surfing spot of mystical isolation, a site of concern to archeologists and environmentalists, and a muse for artists and other casual visitors.
To many of them, the Bixby Ranch is the last perfect place in California. "The footprint of man is very light out here," says Bill Etling, a Santa Ynez Valley Realtor who grew up surfing the Bixby. "It's where you understand what California was all about before people ruined it..."