Santa Rosa Island is situated 26.5 miles off the Southern California coast of Santa Barbara. It lies three miles to the east of its closest neighbor, San Miguel Island, and six miles to the west of Santa Cruz Island. At 84 square miles in size, Santa Rosa is the second largest of California's eight Channel Islands. To put this enormity into perspective, this equates to an area a third larger than the District of Columbia, almost three times the size of Hong Kong, or almost four times the size of New York's Manhattan Island. And yet, through 150 years of private ownership by three family-run operations (Carrillo, More and Vail & Vickers), Santa Rosa Island has escaped the spread of the ever-advancing adjacent mainland population and its accompanying blades of construction. Today, Santa Rosa Island is part of the Channel Islands National Park.