See historic SLO County store roll down the road in first move since 1870s
The historic San Simeon structure known as Sebastian’s General Store was lifted off its foundation and moved this week from its home of more than 140 years.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, crews from Scott Heavy Movers carefully plucked the 19th-century wooden building from its longtime location at 442 SLO San Simeon Road and rolled it 375 feet down the two-lane road — about a city block.
The structure will return to its original location once crews create a new concrete slab foundation.
Hearst Corp., which owns Sebastian’s Store and most of the rest of the land in Old San Simeon Village, closed the store in August 2019 due to safety concerns, launching the long restoration process.
Crews from Covelop Inc. of San Luis Obispo have been working on the renovation since Sept. 20, demolishing the deck at Old San Simeon Road and preparing the building for its move.
Covelop principal Pat Arnold estimated then that it will take about eight months and more than $1 million to make the former general store stronger, safer and up to code, while maintaining its historical flavor.
Sebastian’s has been registered as a California Historical Landmark since 1960.
According to California State Parks’ Office of Historic Preservation, Sebastian’s is “the oldest store building along the North Coast of San Luis Obispo County.”
“Built in the 1860s at Whaling Point (also known as San Simeon Point), one-half mile to the west, it was moved to its present location in 1878,” the Office of Historic Preservation’s website says.
According to a Hearst Historical Research Evaluation report, the structure was created by joining two stores together to make a single, larger store.
Historic San Simeon store moves to new location
On Tuesday, equipment slowly raised the Sebastian’s store building about 3.5 feet above the ground. But the actual relocation took place Wednesday afternoon.
With equipment operator Eric Privett of Scott Heavy Movers maneuvering the tow vehicle, a Bobcat T-650, the building began its shift from one end of the lot to the other at 1 p.m. The structure was in place and secured about 20 minutes later.
At the turn-out of the old location, one corner of the store building passed about a foot over the top of a split-rail fence in front of the oceanfront Hearst warehouses.
The store lumbered down to the other end of the property at a rate so slow it probably wouldn’t have even registered on a tow vehicle’s speedometer. (The Bobcat’s top speed is about 10.6 mph.)
Then, the crew gingerly and slowly set the building down at the other end of the property.
The structure looked like a deposed dowager queen perched on a picnic bench and waiting for her spiffed-up throne to be ready for her again.
Scott Heavy Movers vice president Charlie Scott said Sebastian’s General Store is far from the biggest historic building that the North Highlands-based company has moved.
“We’ve moved 200,000-square-foot, 1,000-ton buildings before,” Scott said, adding that the firm’s current work schedule includes a San Francisco post office, part of an Oakland naval hospital and several structures for the University of Nevada Reno.
Scott said the trickiest part of the Sebastian’s move will be getting the building onto its new foundation.
According to Ben Higgins, director of agricultural operations for Hearst Corp., the store’s new foundation — excluding exterior patios and restrooms — will be a 1,700-square-foot “reinforced concrete slab on grade, with space below the subflooring for utilities.”
“The actual final interior will be somewhat larger,” he added via email, as the non-historic portion of the building, which previously housed a post office, is not being moved.
Covelop’s superintendent on the job, Chris Baranek, said that section was in such bad shape that it will be demolished and replaced.
Baranek said the toughest part of the job so far has been taking apart the floor of the building, which Hearst vice president and heir Steve Hearst wants preserved and reused.
Archaeological consultants watching for artifacts didn’t find anything significant under the building other than “a couple of coins from the 1950s.”
Higgins said Hearst Corp. hopes the first phase of the restoration will be complete by next spring, weather permitting, and that the corporation will be able to reopen Sebastian’s by mid-2022.
“A lot of folks have special memories of this place,” he said at the site. “We’re really looking forward to reopening it and reintroducing them to the Sebastian’s that they remember.”
Other moving North Coast experiences
Sebastian’s General Store is far from the first significant building to move on the North Coast.
In the 1980s, the circa-1903 Westendorf house was moved from the corner of Burton and Center streets in Cambria to its new location a block away at 2150 Center St., where it was remodeled into Ian’s restaurant.
After Ian’s closed, Cambria Bicycle Outfitters occupied the building, followed in 2009 by Dragon Bistro Asian restaurant. The structure has been vacant since the bistro closed in 2019.
In 2003, the Mid-State Bank & Trust building was relocated a few blocks from its meadow location at 1070 Main St. in Cambria, near the intersection of Cambria Drive and Main Street, to become the Lion’s Club’s Cambria Community Center at 870 Main St. The building now houses Poly Pro Window & Door Co.
In 2019, the Cambria Historical Society relocated the Old Santa Rosa Schoolhouse from 880 Main St. to a meadow near the intersection of Main Street and Santa Rosa Creek Road. The nonprofit organization is renovating the structure to serve as an educational museum.
This story was originally published October 28, 2021 at 12:16 PM.
