The Monterey cypress at the Del Mar and Horizon hedgerows have already come down. What replaces them is still being worked out. The Sea Ranch Association's October 2026 Bulletin gives the timeline. Community comments closed October 25, and the plans are being refined through November 7. Site walks at each grove come next, sometime in November.
That timeline matters because members are making a choice the ranch has never had to make. For about a hundred years these hedgerows were a single species, planted for livestock. The new plantings at Del Mar and Horizon will be designed for the people living around them, based on what members said they want a windbreak to do.
Planted for Sheep, Kept for Everything Else
The 2015 Signature Hedgerow Management Plan, adopted by the TSRA board on October 31, 2015, credits rancher Walter Frick with planting the twenty "Signature" cypress hedgerows around 1916. He planted them as shelter for his Del Mar Ranch livestock against the coast wind. When the founders arrived in the early 1960s, the plan says, they found overgrazed meadows split by these windbreaks. The designers then used the hedgerows for wind protection and as templates for laying out roads and home sites while keeping the commons open.
The management plan already described those first trees in 2015 as a century old, up to eighty feet tall, and in decline in the harsh coastal conditions. It warned that without planned management, future generations would not have the Signature hedgerows.
The same plan notes that hikers walk the trails through and along these rows, and that wildlife and birds use them for food, shelter and as corridors across the ranch. The hedgerows began as farm equipment and gradually took on other jobs. Nobody designed them for those jobs.
Why Replanting the Same Trees Isn't the Default
The October Bulletin's article on hedgerow management describes this year's soil work. The consultant's studies look at the health of the soil food web, identify parasites and pathogens, and recommend further lab work before any new planting goes in.
The article explains why the soil matters:
"All three sites have been non-native monocultures for over a century, and one kind of tree above ground often supports a narrow community below it. A simplified soil community tends to have little natural resistance, which could help explain some of the struggles we see in cypress and native species ranch wide."
That is the case against simply replanting cypress. A hundred years of one tree may have narrowed the life in the soil, which can make new plantings of any species harder to establish. So whatever goes into the ground at Del Mar and Horizon has to start with the soil the old rows left behind.
What Members Said a Hedgerow Is For
The Horizon site has been in this process longer than the others. After a fall 2025 gathering on possible directions for Horizon's restoration, TSRA opened a feedback portal. It asked members which functions the historic hedgerows serve and which ones matter most to keep.
According to the October 2026 Bulletin, members put visual beauty and wind protection at the top of the list for a rebuilt shelterbelt. On form, members said they prefer hedgerows that blend with the commons over hedgerows as an architectural statement. The Bulletin says that fits the Hedgerow Working Group's rubric, which allows a different solution at each site.
That preference is the core of the story. Frick's rows were tall, straight, single-species walls. When members ask for hedgerows that blend with the commons, they are asking for something that looks different from a dark band of eighty-foot cypress. The 2025 Hedgerow Working Group article in Soundings makes the same point from another direction. It says the ranch's 40 hedgerow segments should be assessed one at a time, based on condition, community input, site conditions and funding, with no uniform treatment for all of them.
Three Sites, Three Different Starting Points
TSRA's environmental consultant, PCI Ecological, studied the Del Mar, Horizon Reach and One-Eyed Jack's cypress this year and drafted revegetation plans. Those drafts went to the TSRA Board, the Design Committee, the Hedgerow Working Group, the Ecology Subcommittee and staff for review before reaching members.
The three sites are in different places right now:
| Site | Where it stands in late October 2026 |
|---|---|
| Del Mar | Trees already removed; restoration plan in refinement |
| Horizon Reach | Trees already removed; member feedback collected since the 2025 gathering |
| One-Eyed Jack's | Trees still standing; reports include an arborist's recommendations on how to reduce the hazards |
One-Eyed Jack's is the site walkers know best right now, because of the signs. On the TSRA trails page, the association warns that near Trail Posts 36B to 36E, trees, trunks, limbs and branches may fall suddenly and without warning. That risk is highest during and after strong winds, storms or saturated soil. Visitors are asked to stay out of the area in high wind or storms, or whenever closure signs or barriers are up.
So Del Mar and Horizon are cleared ground waiting for a plan. One-Eyed Jack's still has its old trees, and the question there is how to manage them safely.
The Calendar From Here
This is the full fall sequence as TSRA laid it out, including the steps that are already finished:
- September 25: Live online presentation of the reports, assessments and draft restoration site plans, recorded and posted to the TSRA website.
- September 25 to October 25: Thirty-day community comment period through the online portal, now closed.
- October 3: Online expert panel Q&A with the consulting arborist, ecologist, Hedgerow Working Group members and staff.
- October 25 to November 7: Restoration refinement, with community feedback folded into the final plans and dimensional renderings posted.
- November, date TBA: In-person Hedgerow Restoration Walks at each site to review how implementation will proceed and discuss ways to take part in stewardship.
The comment window is closed, but two steps are still open to members. The final plans and renderings are due by early November. The November walks are the in-person part of the process, and they are set up around stewardship roles members can join. The Bulletin says every session is recorded and posted to the TSRA website, and that questions not answered live will be added to the website FAQ.
TSRA has not posted a walk date yet, so watch the association's InfoAlerts and events calendar in early November.
Walking the Groves This Winter
If you want to see the Del Mar and Horizon sites before the walks, plan around a trail system already set up for winter.
TSRA scheduled culvert work "throughout October" to prepare for winter storms. The affected sections are Trail Post 34A to 35D, Trail Post 35F to 36E, the Firebreak Trail across from Whale Bone Reach near mile marker 55.24, and Trail Post 14C to 15C. The 35F to 36E closure overlaps the stretch where One-Eyed Jack's warning signs stand. Check the trails page before assuming those sections have reopened.
The Bluff Trail between Trail Posts 42 and 43 has been detoured since early January 2026. A January 7 InfoAlert tied the detour to the king tides of the previous week. A week later, TSRA said that section was "closed until further notice due to bluff erosion." The trails page still lists the detour. It warns that the bluff there remains unstable and that going into the closed area risks injury and may mean trespassing on private lots.
King tides come back soon. The California King Tides Project lists November 24 to 26 and December 23 to 25, 2026, and notes that Northern California locations may also see high tides on December 22. Its tide map gives local times.
Recreation centers switch to winter hours on Sunday, November 1, and those hours run through March 13, 2027. At Del Mar, open swim ends at 6 p.m. instead of 7, and courts close at 6. Ohlson's pool, saunas and locker rooms were scheduled to stay closed for repairs through November 1. The recreation centers page posts any changes.
Another walk this season also goes through land shaped by earlier ranching. The Sea Ranch Lodge lists a Forest Hike at The Farm on November 28 at 10 a.m. It covers 1.5 miles on century-old logging roads, riparian areas and open rangeland, with a 400-foot climb. It is capped at 25 guests ages 7 and up, registration is required, and dogs are not permitted.
When the November hedgerow walk date is posted, it will be the first chance to stand at Del Mar or Horizon and see a plan for what goes into the ground there next.
At Kennedy & Associates, we've watched these cypress rows frame Sea Ranch views for decades, and we're following the restoration as closely as our neighbors. If you'd like to hear when the walk dates and final plans are posted, or want to talk through how the changes at Del Mar, Horizon or One-Eyed Jack's might affect the views or wind near a property you own or are considering, Cindy and our team are glad to help. Sign up to Receive Exclusive Listings and our local updates.
