Mount Hermon, CA

Mount Hermon sits about seven miles outside Santa Cruz in the mountains, a small community that grew around a Christian conference center. Felton lies just downhill and Scotts Valley, the nearest larger town, sits to the east. The camp took shape in the early 1900s beside a railroad junction, and the conference center has been the anchor ever since. It hosts camps and conferences for groups, runs canopy and aerial adventure courses, keeps a bookshop and operates an outdoor science school. Privately owned homes surround the grounds, so it reads as a quiet residential area with a large campus at its core. Home life is quiet and wooded. Houses stand close to the conference grounds under tall trees, and the grounds fill with families and groups during camp seasons, then settle down again between programs. The redwood shade keeps the streets cool even when the valley floor warms up, and the tall trees give the community its character more than any one building does. Dining in Mount Hermon points elsewhere, since the community has few places of its own. Rocky's Cafe in Felton does breakfast and brunch, Cowboy Bar & Grill, also in Felton, is another sit-down choice, and Scotts Valley, with its shopping centers and restaurants, is the next step. The redwood forest of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, a short distance away, supplies the walking. Getting around means driving. Mount Hermon Road links Mount Hermon to Felton in one direction and to the Scotts Valley commercial area in the other, and Highway 17 sits close by for trips over the mountain. The conference center's programs set the rhythm of the place, and the small center also holds the community's post office and a bookshop. What it gives in return for the lack of retail is a setting where a conference center and a residential area share the same trees.