Santa Lucia Preserve

The Santa Lucia Preserve, formerly known as Rancho San Carlos, is a gated private conservation community in the foothills of the Santa Lucia Range near Carmel on California's Monterey Peninsula, spanning about 20,000 acres. Roughly 12,000 acres are held as nature reserve and 8,000 more as open land, with about 2,000 acres set aside for 297 home sites, and most of the property is protected in perpetuity through a conservation land trust. The property contains much of the Las Garzas Creek watershed, a tributary of the Carmel River, and opened in 1999 after development began in 1990.