A small town between two famous ones
Solana Beach is the rare North County coastal town that still feels like a town. Two miles of coastline between Del Mar to the south and Encinitas to the north, a walkable stretch of Cedros Avenue where the design district keeps the tone quiet and considered, and the long ribbon of the bluff-top trail where locals walk before the marine layer lifts. The traffic thins out the moment you cross Lomas Santa Fe. The conversation in the coffee line is about the surf at Pillbox or the new plantings at the library, not the next appointment.
The homes here reflect that. The people who own them are serious — many of them have been here decades, some bought last year and are still adjusting to how the light moves across a yard that has never had the time or the plan it deserves. Either way, the question is the same. You stand on the back patio on a Thursday evening. The air is cool and dry and slightly saline. The sun is two fingers above the Pacific. The space works for about twenty minutes a day and then it falls apart — no shade, no place for the grandkids, nowhere to put a drink down, a lawn that drains poorly in February, a row of aging shrubs screening a neighbor’s garage.
You do not need a landscape service. You need one coordinated plan for the whole outdoor footprint, drawn for this property and this climate, executed by a single crew that will finish what they started. That is the work we do in Solana Beach.
The property profile
Solana Beach is compact — 3.5 square miles, roughly 13,000 residents — but the housing stock is unusually varied for a town this size. On the west side of the 101 you find the original beach cottages and the newer custom homes that replaced them, often on sub-6,000-square-foot lots where every square foot of the yard carries design weight. Climb the bluff on Sierra, Rios, or Pacific Avenue and the lots widen, the views open, and the stakes rise in parallel. The Del Mar Beach Colony parcels to the south and the bluff-edge homes north of Fletcher Cove are among the most closely watched addresses in the county.
East of the 101, Old Solana Beach holds a quieter inventory — mid-century ranches, beach-adjacent cottages on 0.15- to 0.25-acre lots, a few pockets of 1960s tract that have been remodeled into something that reads as custom. Across Interstate 5 sit the larger Lomas Santa Fe and Santa Helena tracts, many of them 0.25 to 0.5 acres, with architectural review tied to the community covenants and a design character that leans craftsman, Mediterranean, and transitional ranch.
Lots run 0.1 to 0.5 acres across most of the city. The yards are rarely large. The expectations always are.
Soil, salt, and the bluff
The soil story in Solana Beach changes as you move east. The bluff and the parcels close to the coast sit on sandy coastal substrates over a sandstone shelf — fast-draining in the surface layers, but structurally sensitive where bluff retreat is a live consideration. Any hardscape, retaining structure, or drainage path within the coastal zone has to be designed with that stability picture in front of the plans, not behind them.
Move east of the freeway and the profile shifts. The Lomas Santa Fe tracts and the parcels climbing toward Rancho Santa Fe increasingly carry expansive clay — the same soil story that governs design decisions across inland North County. Clay holds water, swells, and then contracts, and it punishes hardscape that was installed without an honest base section.
The salt air at the west end is real. Within the first few blocks of the coast, budget metals are a short-term finish. We specify marine-grade stainless for exposed fasteners, powder-coated aluminum or COR-TEN for structural accents, and hardwoods or modified timbers that hold their geometry in the chloride load. It is a quiet decision on paper and a loud one five years in.
Permits and jurisdiction
Solana Beach issues its own permits through the City of Solana Beach Community Development department, which handles planning review, building permits, and the administrative details that sit alongside them. For most inland parcels, that is the entire jurisdictional picture.
For parcels in the coastal zone, a second review applies. Any development seaward of the Coastal Zone boundary — which covers a significant portion of the city — requires a Coastal Development Permit, and depending on scope the work may route through the California Coastal Commission in addition to the city. That process has its own rhythm, its own submittal requirements, and its own timeline.
A third layer applies where views are at stake. Solana Beach’s View Assessment Ordinance, administered by the View Assessment Commission, governs projects that may impact the established views of neighboring properties — primarily trees and structures, but the review can touch on pergolas, shade structures, and larger planting decisions. We treat View Assessment review as scope, not a surprise.
We run city review, Coastal Commission review where applicable, and View Assessment review as part of the project. You sign. We do the walking.
Design character
The design vocabulary in Solana Beach reads quieter than its neighbors. Del Mar leans European and Colony-era. Rancho Santa Fe carries its Lilian Rice inheritance. Solana Beach keeps the palette pared down — coastal contemporary on the west side of the 101, craftsman and Mediterranean scattered through Old Solana Beach and Lomas Santa Fe, and a strand of mid-century that has aged into something genuinely collectible.
The Cedros Design District is the visible influence on that palette. A few blocks of galleries, showrooms, and makers — furniture, lighting, textile, ceramic — have taught a generation of local homeowners what considered material selection looks like. That vocabulary carries into the yards: honest woods, sand-finished concrete, acid-washed steel, stone set with a hand rather than a machine, planting that reads native rather than decorative.
We design in that register. COR-TEN planters and seat walls where the property allows an architectural line. Vertical-grain cedar or Accoya for overhead structures. Sand-finished poured concrete or large-format paver where the scale justifies it. Olive, strawberry tree, dwarf date, Mediterranean fan palm where the planting has to hold its shape in salt air. Path lighting zoned so the night reading of the yard matches the day reading. Material honesty is the recurring note — if a wall is masonry, it reads as masonry; if a beam is wood, it shows its grain.
The result is a yard that earns its place in the neighborhood without ever raising its voice.
Where we fit in Solana Beach
Our clients in Solana Beach tend to share a profile. They have owned homes elsewhere. They know what a fragmented process costs. They do not want five trade phone numbers and a coordinator — they want one plan, one crew, and a single line to a founder who is actually on the project.
We run Solana Beach remodels end to end. That includes the design program, the city permit package, the Coastal Development Permit where the parcel sits in the coastal zone, and the View Assessment submittal where the project touches established views. On the build side, one crew runs the project from first cut to final clean. Our lead craftsman has twenty-five-plus years of high-end outdoor work behind him, and either Gio or Mike is personally on every project — not an account manager, not a coordinator. You have both cell phones from the first call.
The 10-Month Walk-Through is part of every project. Ten months after completion — through one wet winter, one hot September, and the first real wear the space will see — we come back, walk every square foot of our work with you, and handle anything the seasons have exposed. No invoice. Almost nobody in this industry does this. That is exactly why we do.
By design, not by dispatch. Projects are planned months ahead and executed by a single crew. The calendar is short, and the clients on it are the ones who want the work to hold.
Services for Solana Beach properties
We take on the full outdoor footprint. For most Solana Beach homes that means a coordinated plan across hardscape, structure, kitchen, and lighting, with planting and irrigation designed alongside the build rather than after it. Each of our service pages covers the detail.
- Full backyard remodels — the hero scope, one plan for the entire outdoor footprint
- Outdoor kitchens and BBQ islands
- Patios and hardscape design
- Fire pits and fireplaces
- Pergolas and shade structures
- Retaining walls and seating walls
- Artificial turf installation
- Landscape lighting
- Pool decks and poolside hardscape
- Drainage and grading
Water features, spa integrations, and in-house design visualization are handled within a full remodel scope rather than sold as standalone work.
Frequently asked
City of Solana Beach review versus Coastal Commission review — which applies to my project?
It depends on where the parcel sits. Inland of the Coastal Zone boundary, your project goes through the City of Solana Beach Community Development department on the standard municipal track. Seaward of that boundary, a Coastal Development Permit is required, and depending on scope, appeal status, and the location of the parcel within the zone, the permit may be issued by the city under a certified Local Coastal Program, or routed to the California Coastal Commission itself. We identify the track during the site visit and build the submittal to match. Both reviews are inside our scope.
What is the View Assessment process and when does it apply?
Solana Beach’s View Assessment Ordinance gives neighbors a formal mechanism to raise view-impact concerns — primarily around trees and structures that block established views. The View Assessment Commission hears applications and issues findings. Most outdoor remodels do not trigger the process, but larger pergolas, tall shade structures, specimen tree placements on view corridors, and certain upper-deck additions can. We evaluate the risk during design, and where a filing is warranted we handle the submittal and the hearing representation as part of the project.
My home sits on the bluff. How do you handle drainage?
Bluff-top drainage is its own discipline. The surface sand drains quickly, which can mask the real question — where the water goes once it reaches the sandstone shelf below. Uncontrolled concentrated flow anywhere near the bluff edge is how you turn a stable parcel into an unstable one. We design drainage on bluff lots to disperse surface water inland, route roof and hardscape runoff through sub-surface infiltration systems well away from the edge, and coordinate with a geotechnical engineer when the scope warrants it. No shortcuts, and no French drain pointed toward the ocean.
Solana Beach lots are small. Can you still design a full outdoor footprint?
Yes — and small-lot design is where discipline shows most. A 5,000-square-foot yard that has to hold a kitchen, a dining area, a conversation space, and a lawn the grandchildren can actually use asks more of the plan, not less. We design the circulation first, the built elements second, and the planting last, so the yard reads as rooms rather than as features. Some of our favorite work is on lots under a quarter acre.
What is the architectural context in Lomas Santa Fe?
Lomas Santa Fe tracts lean craftsman, Mediterranean, and transitional ranch, with community design guidelines that govern material, color, and massing on exterior changes. We design in that register by default — honest wood, stone or stucco where the house reads masonry, paint palettes that sit quietly next to the neighbors, and overhead structures that pick up the house’s roofline rather than fight it. Where the community requires architectural review, we prepare the submittal alongside the city permit package.
What does a typical Solana Beach project cost?
Our Solana Beach work generally falls in the $75,000 to $300,000 range, with a meaningful share of coastal-zone and bluff-lot projects landing at $200,000 and up. A scoped hardscape-and-structure refresh on a smaller inland lot can sit closer to the $50,000 floor. A coordinated remodel of a bluff-adjacent parcel with coastal permitting, custom structures, and a material program keyed to salt air typically runs higher. We do not take on small-scope work, and we do not price-match. We give an honest price and deliver the work behind it.
Do you work in neighboring towns?
Yes. Our North County Coastal work runs the length of the corridor — see Del Mar, Encinitas, and inland to Rancho Santa Fe for the adjacent jurisdictions and design contexts.
References available on request
We do not publish testimonials. When a project is complete, we invite future clients to speak directly with the homeowners who have lived in the finished work, and during discovery we will walk you past completed projects in person so you can see the work as it lives. Mike’s active Class B general contractor standing is verifiable any time through the CSLB license lookup.
When you are ready
If the property is in Solana Beach and the scope is serious, we would like to hear about it. A first conversation is thirty minutes — by phone, or on your yard — and there is no cost to begin. We will listen, we will tell you what we see, and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right firm for the work.
Licensed and insured general contractor, operating under Mike’s Class B license — CSLB #1139785.