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tournament. e title is self-explanatory. Typically used as a fundraiser for causes like area schools, participants play sans shoes while utilizing just three golf clubs. But here's another reason for the Surfrider designation: All the "sand" in the traps is made of crushed glass. e Ranch has a Bottles to Bunkers Program. ey pulverize all their wine and beer bottles, along with any glass that gets broken in the restaurant, in a crusher made by a New Zealand company. e crusher sifts the glass to create perfect sized grains, so a golf ball won't sink into it. e practice reduces the hotel's carbon footprint and saves hundreds of thousands of dollars in importing regulation golf course sand. At the far end of the golf course, I toured the property's intensively planted, half- acre working farm. Under the eye of farm manager Leo Goldsmith, and without the use of any machinery or chemicals, the farm produces flowers (some for show, some that are edible) and vegetables incorporated into the menu on the property's Harvest restaurant. "We have a lot of different salad mixes, some that are really mild and easy for the chef to adapt," says the affable Goldsmith, who's been holding a beautiful bouquet of just-picked flowers during our entire conversation. "Other salad mixes have a real personality. It's something people are going to notice in the restaurant — the freshness, and not having traveled on the interstate in a box." Hotel guests are always welcome to stop by and check out the farm's garden, greenhouse, and a sizable compost pile, created in part by kitchen scraps, which is then incorporated into the garden's soil. ere's also a hen house, which usually pens about 30 chickens. Eggs from the birds are used to make the dough that becomes Harvest's daily fresh pasta. Harvest is located in the resort's main building, and the best seats in the restaurant are in the enclosed patio room. Floor-to-ceiling windows allow diners to look out over part of the golf course and to the top of one of the canyon walls. Open for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, Harvest was also named an "Ocean Friendly Restaurant" by the Surfrider Foundation. If the ingredients can't be grown on the farm, they're sourced locally for seasonal menus (fish are sourced according to the James Beard Foundation's sustainable seafood standards). My wife and I were delighted with a pair of entrees: a special seared salmon with garden greens and the Double 'R' Ranch prime dry aged New York strip steak paired with a Hasselback potato and crème fraîche. For lunch the next day, we walked back out on the entrance road along Aliso Creek. A tunnel under Coast Highway allows access to Salt Creek Beach and the Lost Pier Cafe, also operated by e Ranch. It's a cheeseburger-and-fries kind of menu, but a juicy burger on a sunny beach with waves crashing nearby is on my list of top dining experiences. And yes, the Lost Pier Cafe, with its wooden cutlery and sustainable offerings, also owns a Surfrider Foundation stamp of approval. For such a green enterprise, from beach to canyon, it's fitting that the resort's premier suite is called e Treehouse. It is not, however, lashed into a tree. e Treehouse is a two-bedroom, two-floor, hexagonal-shaped house with a wraparound balcony. e property owners used to live here. One design highlight on the first floor is an amazing copper chimney in the middle of the room. e house is like a private retreat inside an already secluded resort, which has drawn the interest of celebs. A weekend at e Ranch, with e Treehouse as your home base and options like barefoot golf, deliciously sustainable meals, and easy beachfront access, might as well be billed as "Virtual Eden." theranchlb.com Harvest Leo Goldsmith at The Ranch's farm LEO GOLDSMITH: PHOTO BY RON DONOHO ALL OTHER PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF THE RANCH AT LAGUNA BEACH @ranchandcoast RANCH & COAST MAGAZINE JUNE 2025 81