Poolside/Beachside Escape,
to the Cliff House Inn
Mussel Shoals Beachfront
Is a Secret Treasure in the 805
By Josef Woodard | February 2, 2023
Read all of the stories in our “Locals-Only Sneak Peek at SBIFF” cover here.
The story behind this story starts with the painting. Last fall, the superlative and vibe-capturing painter Patricia Chidlaw had her summertime exhibition at Sullivan Goss Gallery, bearing the self-explanatory title The Pool Show. One of the prize canvases in this set of cool pool portraits was a twilight view of the pool at the unique hotel known as the Cliff House Inn, just south of the Rincon.
It’s reasonable to report that the Cliff House, once a highly visible feature of the coastal landscape in the tiny enclave of Mussel Shoals, roughly in the neighborhood of La Conchita, the 101, and the weirdly alluring Rincon Island and pier, has receded from our consciousness and become a secret treasure, hidden in plain sight. That very status, achieved by the building of a large wall and bike path in 2015 — as part of the epic and seemingly endless freeway expansion project — makes it all the more intriguing as an extremely close escape route for Santa Barbarans. It’s a prime getaway exotic outpost, agreeably funky-kitschy around the edges but appealing in many ways. And it requires roughly a 20-minute drive from downtown Santa Barbara.
Oddly, in the widely touted beach-town culture of Santa Barbara, it’s hard to think of a single hotel/motel in the 805 with a closer proximity to the actual lapping of waves on the shore. Once there, I was reminded of a trip to a jazz festival in Barbados, staying in a hotel nuzzling up against the beach. There, like here, the rolling waves became a meditative sonic force. The only thing missing in this memory parallel was the collective chirp of Barbados tree frogs.
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