Dana Point Real Estate - The Best of Dana Point
The seaside town of Dana Point has more to offer its some 35,000 residents than prime coastal real estate, conveniently located midpoint between San Diego and Los Angeles, west of Interstate-5 and along Pacific Coast Highway.
Year-round temperate weather offers locals healthful living in a vacation setting. On any given day, people stroll Dana Point Harbor, once famous for its legendary wave known as Killer Dana, or head for the nearest beach to exercise or take in the vistas from Dana Point homes.
Monarch Beach Real Estate
This enclave of luxury mansions, cozy Monarch Beach condos, and single family residential Monarch Beach homes in both gate-guarded and suburban settings runs along Pacific Coast Highway from Crown Valley Parkway (south) and Niguel Road (at the Dana Point Public Library), and along Del Avion (east in from PCH) that intersects Crown Valley and Niguel.
The South Orange County beach community is within walking distance to Salt Creek Beach Park, south of the Ritz Carlton, a recreational beach and park with paths, basketball, picnic tables and grills, located on a grassy knoll, ideal for kite flying, above the Pacific Ocean and in front of Monarch Beach ocean front homes.
Surfers toting longboards and short pro-boards head for Salt Creek Beach Park in search of that perfect wave, while joggers and others follow pathways that skirt world-class Monarch Beach Golf Links attached to St. Regis Resort where one will find beautiful Monarch Beach golf course view homes for sale. The beach path with breathtaking ocean view homes attached to Ritz Pointe runs along the edge of the 18-hole golf course. Access to Salt Creek is also available at Niguel and Stone Hill by the library.
The stretch of beach within the park engulfs Strands (south to “The Point”) and Monarch Bay (north toward the world-famous art community and next town up, Laguna Beach).
The Dana Point Harbor
“The Point,” as local aficionados call the Dana Point Harbor region, is on the other side of the massive cliff at the end of Strands. The harbor is rift with things of the sea. There’s something for everyone along the tourist-grabbing marina complete with walkways and thoroughfares, some paths winding into the surrounding bluffs, embedded with world-class Dana Point condos and Dana Point homes for sale.
Of course there are eateries and gift shops, coffee houses with ice cream and bagels, restaurants for casual and serious diners, and a walking path that spreads across a bridge where a statue of the founding sea captain—Richard Henry Dana, Jr.—can be found. You can walk in a loop or from one end of the Dana Point harbor to the Ocean Institute, behind which the walkway veers into a jetty.
For boating enthusiasts, there are boat slips galore, home to a variety of sea-going vessels from skiffs and sailboats to high-powered speedboats, catamarans and yachts. The north end of the boating community houses day- and night- commercial excursions, including whale watching boats, day-ferries to Catalina, and fishing expeditions. Homebuyers who purchase Dana Point real estate along Del Obispo and Camino Capistrano and into the hills of Capistrano Beach real estate experience a nautical lifestyle with kayak and sail boarding lessons a jog away.
Of course you don’t have to live along the harbor to participate in sea sports. For that matter, people travel far and wide to enjoy the amenities Dana Point Harbor has to offer. But for those residents who buy in Dana Point, there is fun to be had year-round. The annual Dana Point Festival of Whales is held in Spring. A parade of vendors line the usually quiet docks. Souvenir buying, face painting, fun and frolic.
The booths once again crowd the Dana Point harbor during the annual Toshiba Tall Ships Festival. Local vendors dress up in pirate gear and tours aboard ships of yore are conducted.
The Ocean Institute sits at the southern end of the Dana Point harbor, and offers comprehensive educational tours aboard a replica of the tall ship Pilgrim. The journey on board the original brig, commandeered by Richard Henry Dana, Jr. from 1834 to 1836, is detailed in Dana’s “Two Years Before the Mast,” a journal about the town’s first settlers, available at the Institute’s gift shop and which is mandatory reading at the local Dana Point high school.
