Santa Barbara - San Ysidro Ranch

JFK and Jackie honeymooned here, Winston Churchill lived in one of the cottages and Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin were married, at San Ysidro  Ranch, Santa Barbara.

The ranch, which no longer qualifies as a ranch because the horses have long gone, is now owned by 'Beanie Baby'  tycoon, Ty Warner, and has undergone a refurbishment programme where clearly no expense has been spared.

San Ysidro consists of a number of individual cottages.  There are several categories of cottages and this camel decided to go top end.  The reward was Eucalyptus, which, having viewed a number of the other cottages, the camel's companion decided was the best positioned, at the far end of the property by the swimming pool and Spa.  The staff agreed.

Eucalyptus has a totally private terrace with hot tub and outside shower.  The other cottages do not seem to have this level of privacy.  It also has a view of the waterfall into the creek below, which none of the other cottages enjoy.

Eucalyptus is fabulous.  We had our own little house with large sitting room, bedroom and good sized bathroom.  The sitting room has a gas driven “real flame” open fire which we left burning through the night.  It lit up the cottage and was very romantic.  The bathroom has underfloor heating, a large bath and separate shower.  The toiletries were Aqua di Parma, in generous size tubes.

We were provided with a large supply of snacks and non alcoholic drinks in the cottage.  These were complimentary but there was no alcohol provided in the room.  A filter coffee machine was provided and this was the only way to boil water for the tea bags.  The Americans still have not got to grips with the English obsession with tea.  Tea ordered for breakfast came with hot milk!

The hot tub was at a constant high temperature and we used it frequently.

San Ysidro has two restaurants, one formal and the other more like a bistro.  The formal restaurant is based on La Colombe D’Or in Saint Paul de Vence, in France.  The ambience of the restaurant may have been good but the cuisine was very disappointing.

The room service was very good however and we did have lunch on our terrace. San Ysidro did simple food well but failed miserably on the more sophisticated cuisine.

We discovered, to our cost, that having you own transport is essential.  Taxis to and from Santa Barbara are not cheap and the fares quickly mounted up.

The worst moment was when San Ysidro arranged horse riding for us further up the coast.  The receptionist told us that the riding was 15 minutes away by car.  We took a taxi and were utterly horrified to discover that the riding was actually a one hour drive away.  The riding was good fun and a bargain at $30 each but the return taxi fare was painful at over $200 which was more than the cost of the limousine transfer from LAX to the hotel!

We were very aggrieved and expensively misled.

Eucalyptus was pricey at $2000 per night but definitely worth the expense.

This camel and companion would go back tomorrow, but with a hire car.

San Ysidro Ranch
Santa Barbara

+1 805 565 1700