Photo by Micheal Kidd

The earliest known history of the Inn at Avila Beach is that Indians from the Yosemite Valley would “winter” along the shores very close to the current Inn. We’re not sure how old that makes us, but let’s say for historical accuracy…Very Old.

The first known Avila trading post was located on this site. We place the event about 1830 or so, just because it sounds good. Nothing big happened around these parts until Pirate Jean Bouquett landed at nearby Pirate’s Cove. He had just had a run-in with the Mexican troops at the Santa Barbara Mission and Presidio, and decided to sail to the relatively uncharted San Luis Bay coast and hide some treasure nearby. Rumor is that he hid the map somewhere in an old tavern located that was located about where the back of the current Inn lobby is now.

Some guests have sat for hours, contemplating where the map might be (hint: gazing up from the table in the media/meeting room might help) and where the fabled treasure might be buried. So far, we haven’t found it. However, nobody knows the ins and outs of the Inn better than our housekeeping staff. With a little encouragement, they might be persuaded to put you on the trail to the treasure map. What kind of encouragement? Try leaving a couple bucks on the nightstand and see if that works. (Hey, maids have fantasies too…)

By the late 1800s, Avila Beach was a regular trading post, and eventually the Official Custom House was located next door to the current Inn. The Inn was known as more of a Comfort House, if you know what we mean, and we think you do. We would hate to suggest that any sort of illicit trade, or the world’s oldest profession, took place here, but if that’s your fantasy, we won’t spoil it.

By the 1920s, Oil was King in Avila Beach. (No actual oil was found here until the 1990s, but that’s another story, chronicled at www.Unocal.com.) But back in the ’20s the town had as many bars as citizens and had fast become the Atlantic City/Sin Capital of the West Coast, thanks in part to the rum-running out of Pirate’s Cove.

However, the Inn at that time had become a more respectable house, where the chic member’s of Avila’s high society would gather, dressed in their finest gowns and dress whites, and peer down at the oil-soaked masses below from their private balconies. We refer to this era as our Inn at Avila Beach Gatsby Period. The thick, luxurious white robes in all of our rooms are provided to relive this elegant period. Please remember to tightly fasten the belts on the robes should you emulate the upper crust of the Jazz Age and wear them out onto your private balcony. The winds can kick up here and we are trying to erase the memory of our more illicit 1800s period.

In the 1940s, Avila was drawn into World War II along with the rest of the country. After the sinking of an oil tanker just offshore, the Inn was commandeered by the U.S. Civil Shore Patrol and used as a government watchtower in the effort to detect any possible enemy submarines in offshore waters. None were seen; however, all who were stationed here got great tans, found true love and happiness or something very close, and fathered many of the current local residents during their tours of duty.

After World War II, the Inn became a combination long-term motel and short-term apartment house. We have been unable to identify any famous people who stayed at the Inn during its 1920s-1950s heyday, but since every place between Los Angeles. and Hearst Castle claims Errol Flynn and David Niven slept there on the way to the castle, we are sure they slept here too.

It has also been rumored that guests at the Inn used to wade around in the local hot springs up the road, then soak in the ocean and proclaim themselves cured of whatever ailed them. More likely they ate too much, drank too much, wallowed in the mud, and then passed out happily on the beach. So, the Inn may have been California’s first spa for the drunk and dirty.

In the 1960s, the Inn became a Haven for the “Peace and Love” Generation. At that time, the Inn was first a commune and later the center for a cult of eccentric guitar players who only knew one chord.

In the 1970s, the Inn became the unofficial headquarters for the giant demonstrations at the gates of Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, just down the road. The protests often featured people dressed as penguins (Why? We don’t know. But they were cute), occasional celebrities like singer Jackson Browne, professors from nearby Cal Poly State University and also plenty of Cal Poly students. The student protests remained true to the legacy of Avila’s history: most students chose to join the protests by flocking to the golden, sunny beach itself wearing skimpy swimsuits, tanning, swimming, boogie boarding and playing solidarity-enhancing games of volleyball. Even now, 30 years later, today’s Cal Poly coeds can be observed flocking to Avila Beach daily to valiantly carry on this civic tradition.

And Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant? It got built. The protestors left (many moved to Santa Cruz), the plant didn’t blow up, and except for the water at Diablo, everything is OK. Really. Trust us. It’s OK.

In the 1990s, a nice family owned the Inn, and things settled down. In 1997, we purchased the Inn and decided that the world already had too many clearly defined cookie-cutter chain hotels with a lot of rules, so we created the current Mexican-Mediterranean-Key West-Beach House style of the Inn. We decided to play Jimmy Buffet 24 hours a day, and make up the kind of history we think the Inn should have had, which, OK, makes it all wildly inaccurate and unconfirmed and possibly even fictional - all except for this paragraph you’re reading now.

Basically, we bought the Inn and fixed it up into a great kick-back beach hotel because hey, we have plenty of other hotels, but we like hanging out here in Avila Beach the best. And we know you will too.

Enjoy your stay.
Micheal “Captain” Kidd, Kevin Thornton, Proprietors.
The Inn at Avila Beach

“The owners are a little confused, but it’s a really nice place to stay.”

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