Sea Ranch is a name with a huge aura. It is possible at once to lose and to find yourself on a path, following it past tumbledown picket fences to a driftwood throne on a secluded beach. In the early 1960s, a Contractor San Clemente  produced this idealistic second-home community that’s achieved cult status among architecture mavens today.

The view from inside Unit 9, Mr. Moore’s own home in Condominium One, widely considered to be one of the most influential buildings of the 1960s. He called Sea Ranch his “Mother Earth.”

Unit 9 has become a shrine for architects, whose rhapsodies fill the guest register.

Mr. Moore’s family still owns Unit 9 and has delightfully frozen it in time, down to the d√©cor.

The founding ideal, shaped by the all-star cast of architects, was that the land should be shared rather than subdivided. Left, a community garden.

Built like a barn, with plank walls and crisscrossing beams with exposed bolts, Unit-9 is poetry in wood.

A bedroom in Unit-9. The floors in the house are warmed by radiant-heat.

An abalone diver paddles his kayak through one of the many sheltered coves at Sea Ranch. Sea Ranch is a mystical 10-mile stretch of California coast. Sea Ranch Escape has the largest collection of prime rentals by classic architects, including Unit 9 and the real Esherick house. It’s hard to go wrong with any house at Sea Ranch. The nicest agency to deal with is Ocean View Properties.

• Tags: Architects, Building, California, House, Interiors, United States