160-year-old SLO County store is back home again. ‘House moving is a lost art’
History went for another short ride in San Simeon on Monday, as crews moved the circa 1860s Sebastian’s General Store building back home and onto its new foundation — a stable footing the structure never had before.
Hearst Corp., which owns Sebastian’s and most of the land in Old San Simeon Village, closed the venerable store in August 2019, launching the long, research-heavy process of renovating, rehabilitating and restoring the building, while retaining its long history.
Crews from Covelop Collaborative Development, under the watchful gaze of historian Amber Long of Applied Earthworks, have spent the last three months constructing the new 1,700-square-foot foundation, while also dealing with cases of COVID-19.
Ben Higgins, director of Hearst Corp. agricultural operations, said at the site Monday that he expects the rejuvenated structure should reopen in mid-2022, “barring any unforeseen challenges.” That could include a slowdown due to a major electrical upgrade throughout Old San Simeon Village.
The opening might even happen during the busy tourist season in which crowds flock to the tiny, oceanfront village for its pier, beach, San Simeon Point and aura of Hearst family history.
If other forces align, Hearst Castle may have also reopened by then, depending on pandemic guidelines and construction to redo the top half of the access road.
Whenever the store’s reopening happens, it will be good news for visitors and locals who miss going into the rugged old store, diving into a Hearst Ranch beef sandwich, tasting some Hearst Ranch wine, buying a souvenir or checking out the memorabilia on the walls.
No contracts have been signed yet for management or operation of the deli, restaurant, store and tasting room, Higgins said, but they are “in active discussions” with the owner of Hearst Ranch Winery, Jim Saunders.
Higgins also said the permits that would allow the winery to keep its main wine-tasting facility in the historic, oceanfront Hearst warehouse are either “received or in progress.”
He added that a contract isn’t in place yet for the separate, interior-renovation project for tenant improvements.
Tense moments moving historic building to new foundation
The first 10 minutes or so of Monday’s move were a flawless reverse of the location switch in October, when the Scott Heavy Movers crewmembers shifted the state historic landmark building a block away.
But on Monday — just as the team was guiding the lumbering structure up some ramps so the building could hover over the foundation to be set down — there was a heart-stopping moment in which a ramp kicked out and the rig slipped about halfway back down the short incline and then tilted a bit to the left.
As observers gasped and held their collective breath, the house movers shifted into high-gear recovery mode, shouting instructions back and forth as they made adjustments.
With the help of a pneumatic jack, and a lot of shuffling of wooden “cribbing” to support the structure again, they’d leveled it within about three minutes.
After another 15 minutes of adjustments, a relieved Pat Arnold of Covelop noted, “We’re on the ground!”
“The rest is very mechanical, with jacks and wood and a lot of lateral checking,” he said. “The dollies can ‘creep’ it around into position. There’s a lot of final tweaking to do in the last six inches.”
The move away and back “is a total of about 10 to 15 hours of work,” Arnold said.
“But it’s the most stressful part … once it’s down on the foundation, everybody can breathe again,” he said. “It’s a big deal, but they know what they’re doing. House moving is a lost art.”
By 1:15 p.m., the procedure was complete: The dowager queen was firmly on her foundational throne, ready for her future.
A slightly astonished Higgins said later about the structure: “It was not only settled on its foundation, it appears by all accounts that it’s almost perfectly level. Something of a miracle, given its previous condition.”
Sebastian’s is oldest store building on North Coast
This isn’t the first move for Sebastian’s Store, designated as California Historical Landmark No. 726.
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.”
It was built in the 1860s at Whaling Point, which is also known as San Simeon Point, but was subsequently moved in 1878 to 442 SLO San Simeon Road.
That’s where the rustic old lady was (without a foundation underneath) until Oct. 27, 2021. That’s when the Scott Heavy Movers crew carefully plucked the wooden building up and moved it about a block away from its longtime location.
There on its temporary site, the grand-but-ancient 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.
Higgins said the original plan had been to move it back about three weeks earlier, but progress was slowed when employees in all three groups — Hearst Ranch, Covelop and Scott — contracted COVID-19 and had to quarantine and recover.
What’s next for Sebastian’s building renovation?
Chris Baranek, Arnold’s superintendent on the job, estimated that next on his crew’s “core-and-shell” construction schedule will be “flattening the west wall that bowed out some from the previous work.”
“Then, we’ll level the right side (of the building), and reconstruct the back part” that connects Sebastian’s to the residential structure, he added, before repairing the windows, siding and decks.
After that, the interior rehab project can start, aiming toward a mid-2022 reopening and those Hearst beef sandwiches that so many people remember fondly and say they want to eat again soon.
This story was originally published February 1, 2022 at 10:00 AM.
