great26thavenuebeachhouse

Fantastic Vacation for Multiple Families. I am a repeat visitor to this beach house. I have stayed at this house at least once a year for the past few years with family and friends, and I have made some very fond memories there. I would go so far as to say that I consider this house my home on the West Coast. When family and friends get together, having the ability to all stay in the same house not only saves us money, but it also allows us to spend quality time together. This house also lets us bring our dogs, and it has tons of room for everyone, which other houses that we stayed at before lacked. Before we found this house, we stayed at several others over the years, but there was always some major drawback; either we felt cramped with all of us jammed into a 1500 sq foot house, or the pull out beds were super uncomfortable, or they were far from the beach. This house isn't the most updated (style-wise) but it has a lot of great personal touch that easily makes up for that, and, it has none of the draw backs we found in other places. There are 3 - count em- 3 areas for entertaining! And plenty of room in all those areas, so if everyone wants to hang out together, there's room, but also plenty of space to divide and do your own thing. The kitchen opens up into the dining room, has a window to the living room, and also looks out over the ocean! I have watched a lot of sun sets over the coast while making dinner. All of the beds are incredibly comfortable, even the pullouts!!! And, there is decent privacy for everyone, even if sleeping in common spaces. The hot tub is also an added bonus, especially for those days throughout the year when it gets a bit cloudy in Santa Cruz - it's not sunny and warm all the time, and the weather seems to turn very quickly, which makes the hot tub even more enjoyable. The location of this house is also a huge plus. It takes me less than 30 seconds to walk to top of the stairs to the beach, where there is a bench I like to sit on - a lot of the time when I'm visiting, I'll take my morning coffee there to watch the surfers catch waves. It's also a great spot for outdoor enthusiasts - bicycling around the area is easy and relatively safe, it's flat roads mostly, with access to some amazing road riding in the mountains. The owner of the property is from the area, and her and her family know of tons of things to do in the area - restaurants, day outings, rock climbing, bicycling, thrift stores, dog parks - which has been super helpful.