Orange County Attractions

The old standby is Newport Beach. It's an easy weekend trip. The fresh take is to head south to stay on the sand at the Crystal Cove Beach Cottages.

Nestled between Newport and Laguna Beach, Crystal Cove is a 2,791-acre state park that boasts a great swimming beach, tide pools and, since summer 2006, freshly refurbished oceanfront cottages where you can stay overnight and soak up the quintessential California experience.

The nonprofit Crystal Cove Alliance is renovating the original rustic beach cottages one by one, with new foundations, wooden beam ceilings, hardwood floors and warm, simple furnishings that evoke the 1930s and 1940s. The cove, though, is so popular that reservations disappear as soon they become available each month. It's worth the effort. Crystal Cove remains an unspoiled treasure, one of the last of its kind in Southern California.

– Donna Wares, (Jan. 2, 2008)

This stretch between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach became state parkland in 1979, but private lessees held the cottages until 2001. Five years of restoration or reconstruction of the 1930s-era bungalows followed to ready them as rentals.

The funky village clings to the top of the bluff and climbs up from the sand, not quite meeting in the middle. The wood cottages — some clad in bare cedar shingles, others with new or faded paint — sweep around with the curve of the cove, a tiny neighborhood that is half-gentrified. To approach it walking up or down the coast is to stumble head-on into a 70-year time warp, into what the National Register of Historic Places recognized as "the last intact California beach vernacular architecture."

The historic charm and unspoiled coastline come at an irresistible price: from $165 a night for four people. Lodge rooms like mine, which share common living spaces, cost as little as $60 for two people.

Follow the link to read our full review of Crystal Cove State Park's historic cottages.

– Robin Rauzi, (July 23, 2006)

- Los Angeles Times