Home Price Range: 2,500,000 - 35,000,000

Elementary School: Monte Vista, Laguna Blanca  Junior High: La Colina  High School: San Marcos / Santa Barbara

Hope Ranch is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in California. With the median home price at $2.61 million, it’s no wonder Snoop Dogg bought a house here in 2006 along with many other shaker and movers in the California business and entertainment scene.

Exit the highway at Hope/La Cumbre Road and you’ll know you’ve arrived because you’ll pass through the wrought iron Hope Ranch arch with its stone pillars and palm treed backdrop. Although there’s no secret code or guard at the gate, Hope Ranch is pretty exclusive. It’s an unincorporated suburb of Santa Barbara and they exclude themselves from the government of conventional police. Instead, they have their very own “Hope Ranch Patrol,” with limited law enforcing powers. 

It so exclusive, Hope Ranch have a beautiful private beach with Cabana boys. Of course it’s accessible from the public beaches to either side of it, but the only road down to it is behind a gate with a password that is only bestowed upon Hope Ranch residents. 

Hope Ranch sits on the bluffs just north of the mesa and just south of Goleta. It’s a rather hilly area, polka-dotted with palm trees and other lush landscape. The Ranch is home to the La Cumbre Country Club with their dazzling pond and open green for golfing.   There is one quality private school in the neighborhood, and it goes by the name Laguna Blanca.  The surrounding public elementary, Junior and senior high schools are the best in Santa Barbara.

The main drag of Hope Ranch is Las Palmas Road. You can take this street from the main entrance all the way through the neighborhood and it will drop you off just above Hendry’s Beach at Cliff Drive.   There is easy access to shopping in the upper State areas as well as the Mesa, downtown dining and shopping are only 10 minutes away.