Mesmerizing scenic views and urban sophistication in West Santa Cruz.
It’s not inaccurate to say that the Westside of Santa Cruz is world-famous for its surfing beaches. When Surfer Magazine named Santa Cruz its “Best Surf Town” in 2009, it also named the Westside’s Steamer Lane Santa Cruz’s best surf spot. The Westside is also where you’ll find the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum and where the O’Neill Coldwater Classic surf contest was once a yearly event. The allure of Westside surf is undeniable, but there are plenty of other reasons to choose the neighborhoods west of the San Lorenzo River to call home.
The Westside is where funky Santa Cruz dabbles in sophistication. It is here that a former brussel sprout factory at Swift and Ingalls Streets was reborn as a hip shopping and dining district. The Swift and Ingalls Courtyard is filled with a half-dozen wine tasting rooms, two breweries, eclectic and high-end retail shops, and the Westside’s unofficial town hall, Kelly’s French Bakery, where open tables on weekend mornings are a rare commodity.
The Westside is home to West Cliff Drive, which wends 2.5 miles along the coast from downtown to Natural Bridges State Beach, affording breathtaking ocean views to surfers, hikers, picnickers, and those fortunate enough to own a home with a West Cliff Drive address. Properties here fetch upwards of $1,000 per square foot and range in size from tiny pioneer cabins to grand estates, all sharing the same life-affirming views.
The Westside is a community of many personalities. It has a thriving commercial district on Mission Street, a vibrant student and faculty population in its boroughs bordering the University of California Santa Cruz as well as oddities like The Circles, a neighborhood of circular streets laid out in 1890 by the Christian Church of California. The Westside offers block after block of middle- and upper-middle-class single-family homes, a comingling of historic and contemporary, and modest to oversized, but all reflecting the ever-increasing desirability of beachside neighborhoods during the past 30 years.
Westside residents enjoy an abundance of natural riches and they make the most of them. The Westside is ground zero for Santa Cruz surf culture, but it also offers mountain biking in Wilder Ranch, hiking and biking at nearby Henry Cowell Redwoods Park, skateboarding and disc golf at Derby Park, nature walk along West Cliff Drive, and, of course, days lying on the warm sand at any of the Westside’s world-class beaches. In West Santa Cruz, the challenge isn’t what to do, it’s how to find the time to do it all.
Of course, not all time is spent outdoors and the Westside has just as many options for fans of “the great indoors.” Besides the aforementioned shopping and dining districts on Mission Street and at the Swift and Ingalls Courtyards, there is the Seymour Marine Discovery Center, the Surf Museum, and events at UC Santa Cruz. If that isn’t enough, the Beach Boardwalk and downtown, with its dining, shopping, live music, culture, and sports arena, are within walking distance for most Westsiders.
In terms of the age-old, tongue-in-cheek “Eastside vs. Westside” Santa Cruz rivalry, the Westside is usually cast as the more buttoned-down, affluent community. While it’s true that the Westside has many newer, larger homes and numerous upscale neighborhoods, is home to UCSC and the highly regarded Pacific Collegiate School, don’t think for a moment that it has lost its connection with groovy, eccentric Santa Cruz. After all, this district grew up around counterculture surfers, utopian seminarians, and loggers. Before that, West Santa Cruz was home to a lime works plant, whose product fueled the building boom in San Francisco during the Gold Rush. Today’s Westside may have its share of upscale amenities, jaw-dropping views, and impressive homes, but it also has an organic brewery, surfers, skaters, and the free-thinkers of UCSC. This is Santa Cruz, after all.
