Ventura, California: “A City in Transition”

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

California is, for many people, a place where office work ends at 5PM. The state doesn’t exactly have a reputation for hard-nosed hard-working persons. But it has its charms. Drive anywhere along the Pacific Coast of California and you’ll find a host of laid-back, rather alike beach communities. Some are different.

Ventura, for example, a mere 60 miles above Los Angeles. Douglas Wood, general manager of the Crowne Plaza Ventura Beach Hotel, found it took him time to figure out Ventura. First time he came here it seemed to resemble Santa Cruz -- casual even sleepy. Next time he found it more like Monterey, rather upscale. It was, he thought, “a city in transition.”

It would be a shame to see too much transition. This is a city without parking meters. It has a fascinating main street with a historical Mission. It boasts art galleries, tony boutiques and funky shops. It has a surfer’s beach that gets 2,000 hits a day on its webcam. In addition, the Channel Islands National Park lies offshore with the largest collection of maritime caves in the world.

The harbor always seems busy. Island Packers runs boats to all five of the Channel Islands and offers both harbor cruises and whale watching trips. It’s now October but it’s warm. The vacationers show a mix of stalwarts wearing heavy hiking boots and weighed down with huge backpacks, and scantily dressed tourists all dressed in tropical whites. Masses of Boy Scouts, bent over with packs that seem heavier than they are themselves, create a veritable Tower of Babel and contagious excitement as the boat takes off fast for the national park.

Anacapa comes up first -- after we slow down to enjoy about a hundred dolphins who try and match our pace as we cross their terrain. And of course there are seagulls.

Tony Chatman, a senior guide at Aqua Sports who will lead our small party in a 3-hour, 3-mile kayak navigation of Santa Cruz island, warns us to watch our lunch boxes because seagulls will snatch sandwiches in the brief moment as food travels from hand to mouth. Island ravens can even unzip the pockets of backpacks and steal contents. Tony gives us further warnings: there re only two places on Santa Cruz island where smoking is allowed. They are on the beach and ash has to be carried out by the smoker. This is a national park, he says. You must not leave any evidence of your visit. We watch our boat Islander speed off to deliver its visitors to the next island and we turn to Tony to find our kayaks.

It has become a warm day with minimal wind. A guide for 22 years, Tony looks over our bundled-up bodies and pronounces we are over dressed. We make what changes we can; the smart ones are already wearing swim suits under their clothes but some of us are in jeans and boots. “You’ll be sitting in a puddle of water all the time,” Tony says. “Warm water but you’ll be wet.”

“Will our boots get wet?” we naively ask. He tries unsuccessfully to hide his smile. “Oh yes,” is his contained reply. The general advice is: dress in layers, apply sunscreen and carry water. Consider wearing work gloves. Bring insect repellant for the brief time you are on shore. Some of the kayaks have a container like a saddle bag on the back of the canvas seats where you can dump clothing if you get too hot. Island Packers offers “dry bags with no guarantee” for cameras. Your camera will not be able to breathe inside the bag and may steam up although that problem will be less if you put, say, your socks in with it to soak up any condensation. Trouble is if you fasten the bag in front of you it impedes the swing of your paddle (especially if you have an, er, generous abdomen) and if you hang the bag behind it’s awkward to reach. That explains the less than exciting photographs you see of ocean kayaking.

Ventura has, in addition to the sea attractions, a farmer’s market. This access to fresh produce may have done more than anything to make Californian hotel restaurants the enjoyment many of them have become for hungry and sophisticated visitors. Says Nic Manocchio, the executive chef of the restaurant at the Crowne Plaza, “I now know all the local farmers. Three years ago I bought a simple green cabbage from one. I cut it open, tasted it and couldn’t believe the flavor. From a cabbage!”

Asked the philosophy of his kitchen, he answers, “Food is like a language and every culture has its translation.” He simplifies: “ Take produce, nourish it for great food, great company, great humor. Beats anything in life.”

Life does appear to be good in Ventura. The city is defined by water. The coast and the rivers around it is why the Native American Chumash people originally chose to live in this area till disease -- brought by the European maritime trade and by the Spanish missionaries -- essentially wiped them out. Today locals get to see this coast easily; the promenade is 4 ½ miles long. (Ventura once had the longest pier on the West Coast till it lost its last 300 feet in a storm. Santa Cruz now has the title.)

Jim Luttjohann, executive director of the Ventura Visitors & Convention Bureau, believes his city’s history improves visitors’ experiences over that of other destinations. “I hate to use the word ‘authentic’ because it is so overused” he says, “but what you see here is not new made to look old. Everything that you see is what it once was. We have all kinds of Maw and Paw businesses on Main Street. They are, er, authentic!”

One certainly is, the Top Hat Burger Palace, a half century-old 8-foot by 22-foot burger stand on Main Street where in 1988 a woman stabbed a local maintenance worker aged 63. At the trial the next year, she was the first person in California convicted of murder on the basis of DNA.

Other bona fide places around Main Street show their past, too. The 1928 Ventura Theater, designed in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, still holds live concerts in its elaborate interior. “It’s the only surviving theater in the county built in the tradition of the great movie palaces,” says Luttjohann waving his hand over the façade. “Preservation by neglect.”

He picks up a old time advertisement from an antique shop front and grins at his small group.

Chinese workers figured prominently in Ventura’s history. Chinatown had its own volunteer fire brigade and sometimes it would arrive at fires outside its area and often before the professional city fire brigade had shown up. Many murals grace the city’s walls and many catch the angst of being a foreigner in a strange land.

Where to Eat

The C Street Restaurant in the Crowne Plaza demonstrates chef Manocchio really does know local farmers. He revels in “locally-sourced organic vegetables and handcrafted cheeses.” The hotel’s Aqua Lounge looks out over the ocean and the pier and is convenient and delightful for a drink before or after dinner. Or just to watch the sunset.

If you are exploring Main Street have lunch at the Watermark at 598 East Main. A fun place for dinner is also on Main but farther east (too far to walk from midtown): the SideCar restaurant at 3029 East Main.

Both are converted from older buildings.

Watermark occupies the site that, in 1906, housed the Ventura Power Company. Later in 1928 it was remodeled with the elegant brick still attractive today to become a bank. It reopened as Watermark in 2008 after extensive restorations that revealed, under a false ceiling, the stunning hand stenciled ceilings and Norman Kennedy murals that are reminiscent of Hearst Castle. The lower dining rooms are Old World; the glass-enclosed rooftop area W²O is quite avant-garde. The cuisine is as spectacular as the interior design.

The SideCar had a previous existence too. Formerly a 80 foot-long 1910 Pullman railroad dining car it was bought at the height of the Depression in 1932 for $167. It saw service in the old Hagenback Wallace Circus before it became a diner in 1933. It was relocated on Main Street around 1938 and became a popular Hollywood hangout. It was an antique shop in1970, then a Kawasaki dealership then it declined.

It was sold in 2003 to a couple, Tim and LuAnn Heath, who saw its potential. Extra space was added to expand the restaurant although the original dining car surely establishes its ambiance. LuAnn’s son Tim Kilcoyne, has been the chef since 2003. He started in the restaurant business at the age of 14 as a dishwasher. After graduating from Le Cordon Bleu Western Culinary Institute he worked at the French Laundry in Napa Valley and at Pebble Beach – then, at the age of 22, became the chef at the Playboy Mansion. Hey! What a gig!

Visitors thus leave Ventura with memories – of its surf, its Mission, its historic Main Street, its great restaurants, and a chef who survived his post-pubescence trying to gastronomically accommodate Hugh Hefner’s Playmates.