Ojai, CA
Ramaa’s family moved to Ojai in the 1970s to follow the renowned spiritual teacher Krishnamurti. They moved 16 times across Ojai and know every part of this beautiful town. We feel 100% sure that our home is one of the most unusual properties in Ojai. It is a gem within a gem. This small, quiet city 80 miles north of Los Angeles has long attracted spiritual types. The famous sunsets in Ojai — often capped by a phenomenon called “the pink moment,” when the light hits the Topatopa Mountains just so, bathing the Ojai Valley in shades of pink it is magical.
Ojai, a 4.3-square-mile city with about 8,000 residents, sits in the Ojai Valley, a scenic recess in the Topa Topa Mountains, about 15 miles inland from the Pacific Coast. Its downtown village is walkable and filled with shops, restaurants and the Ojai Valley Museum, an exhibition hall inside a historic church, clustered along its main vein.
A citywide ban on chain stores, enacted in 2007, has helped locally run businesses, like the used bookstore Bart’s Books and the European-style deli Marché Gourmet, succeed. (Chain brands are not allowed in Ojai).
When you come stay at our Ojai Vacation rental you’ll find an abundance of things to do. Wellness tourism is a major draw in Ojai, and spa resorts like the Ojai Valley Inn are a popular draw. But just a five-minute drive from downtown Ojai, the neighborhoods open up, and areas including East End where Casa A’Way is located, Persimmon Hill and Saddle Mountain Estates offer bridle trails, valley views and ample land. Los Padres National Forest borders Ojai on the north.
The first residents of Ojai were Chumash Indians, who called the Ojai Valley “A’Way” or “Awhai,” meaning moon, according to the Ojai Valley Museum. Edward Libbey helped design and build the town center. Ojai was incorporated in 1921.
Ojai’s quiet nature has long drawn people in search of ecological and spiritual enlightenment. First inhabited by Chumash Indians and popular with disciples of Jiddu Krishnamurti, the Indian Theosophist leader who made his home there, Ojai is a hotbed of meditation retreats, herbal medicine shops and vegan eateries. When the Thomas Fire formed a ring of flames around Ojai in late 2017 but spared its city center, some locals credited Ojai’s purported seven-energy vortexes for protecting them. Was it a mystical, spiritual vortex that saved the heart of town from the fire, the belt of fruit trees that surround us or simply a shift in wind?
Our favorite restaurants: Dutchess, The Ranch House, Farmer and the Cook, Le Fuente, Pinyon, Ojai Rotie, Rory’s Place, Nociolla, Boccali’s on the East end.
