06-07-2025
Why California's Big Sur residents are fleeing
Once a postcard-perfect escape, California's Big Sur is now facing a harsh new reality... impassable roads, sky-high fire risk, and vanishing access to basic services. Now, even its most devoted residents are packing up and leaving — some after more than 40 years.
For some of the area's 1,500 full-time residents the most recent disruptions — which began in February last year — have been a tipping point. A seven-mile stretch of the road near the community of Lucia was closed in February 2024 and isn't expected to open until the end of the summer. A large land slide near Rocky Creek Bridge in March last year also saw closures to through traffic and residents were only able to leave on designated convoys twice a day.
Further to this many residents were alarmed by Cal Fire's recent upgrade of the area's wildfire risk to 'Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone.' Like other areas of the Golden State, accessing adequate insurance for properties in Big Sur is becoming increasingly difficult. Big Sur has just shy of 900 properties and most sell for $3 million or more. There are 15 properties currently active on the market ranging in price from $1.8 million to $100 million.
Realtor Hillary Lipman, owner of Big Sur Coast Properties, told that issues with the highway and wildfires are certainly a driving factor for the amount of inventory on the market at the moment. 'We've had lots of difficulties with the highway being closed and fires,' Lipman, who has lived in the area for 40 years, explained. 'Most business people are frustrated nothing can be done because of excessive regulations particularly when it comes to the coastal commission. 'They're not allowed to push the dirt into the ocean to get the highway open again [after a slide] it has to be trucked away, which could be more polluting.'
Lipman also owns the only gas station on the Big Sur stretch of the Highway and the constant closures have hit business. Lipman said there is also a generational shift occurring, where older residents who have lived in the area for decades are looking to move closer to a city or town in order to be nearer family and medical facilities.
Around 70 percent of the 15 homes currently listed or sold in the last year have been 'legacy properties' that haven't been on the market in decades. Other older residents are moving on after the death of a spouse. Merle Mullin's 43-acre oceanfront compound Bien Sur is currently on the market for $21.5 million.
