Popular SLO County resort reopens after month-long closure: ‘I’m very thankful’
After being closed more than a month, a popular San Luis Obispo County resort has reopened to the public.
The Ragged Point Inn and Resort shut its doors Jan. 4 through Feb. 9 after a series of landslides forced Caltrans to close a sizable stretch of Highway 1 near Big Sur.
It was the first time that the resort, located about 23 miles north of San Simeon, had closed for “at least 50 years or more,” co-owner Jim Ramey said.
Ramey’s family bought the oceanside land where the Ragged Point Inn sits in the late 1950s and gradually developed it into a sprawling resort with a hotel, restaurant, shops and stunning views.
“I’ve lived here basically all my life,” he said.
Landslide closes Highway 1
During his childhood on the North Coast, Ramey said, minor rock slides were a fact of life.
“Heading south to Cambria, there’d always be rocks on the road,” he recalled. “Sometimes, we’d have to stop and move them over so we could get past.”
However, he added, the area “never had a ‘real slide’ ” until December 2021, when a rockslide covered both lanes of Highway 1 at Polar Star south of Ragged Point, and undermined support for a large rock mass above the road.
Caltrans closed Highway 1 south of the resort for four days, according to resort manager Matt Ramey, Jim Ramey’s son.
However, the scenic highway remained open to the north during that closure, Matt Ramey said, “so our customers and employees could still get through.”
In early January, a repeat seemed likely after a series of storm with more on the way.
Caltrans officials warned people on Jan. 3 that a cliff above Highway 1 about a mile south of Ragged Point was getting ready to dump soil and rocks on the road.
According to Jim Ramey, the road agency emphasized that people at the Ragged Point Inn and Resort needed to leave immediately, before the hillside began to give way.
At that point, there were about six guests and about 30 employees at the scenic resort, Matt Ramey said.
The younger Ramey, who lives in Atascadero, opted to take Caltrans’ advce and leave — along with many of the staffers and all of the guests.
However, once other slides to the north cut off that access, too, leaving wasn’t an option for Jim Ramey and his wife, Dianne, who live on a hill that’s between the inn and Polar Star.
About 10 resident staff members and their families also stayed behind.
On Jan. 4, the Polar Star cliff let loose. The resulting slide blocked both lanes of Highway 1 — causing Caltrans to close the road between the elephant seal viewing area south of Ragged Point in San Luis Obispo County and Deetjen’s Big Sur Inn in Monterey County.
Over the next week or so, feet of rain fell on the area. The Polar Star slide was followed by Paul’s Slide on Jan. 14 and the Mill Creek slide on Jan. 15.
Jim and Dianne Ramey, plus the employees and their families, were trapped at Ragged Point.
Ragged Point Inn closes for more than a month
Just because the Ragged Point Inn and Resort was closed for more than a month, it didn’t mean there was no work to do.
“I’m very thankful to ... the skeleton crew that worked so diligently to keep us safe and running,” Jim Ramey said. “They were out in the driving rain, fixing floods. The sewer plant went down. The fresh water system (developed problems).”
Visibility was so bad due to the drenching rain and wind that, late on Jan. 15, “I was standing by Room 21 and couldn’t see the big Blackhawk helicopter” that had landed about 150 feet away in the resort’s meadow, he said.
The aircraft was the only way paramedics could get Big Sur artist Peter Fels, who had been injured in a car crash followed by a fall, to a San Luis Obispo hospital.
“All I could see were the helicopter’s blinking lights,” Ramey said, calling the U.S. Army pilot’s actions “heroic.”
The Rameys made elaborate arrangements to get an employee — an older man with renal failure and other problems — to a hospital for emergency surgery. He did not survive.
“He was a very sick person,” Matt Ramey said sadly.
Community ‘pulls together’ during shutdown
Ramey’s crew worked diligently throughout the shutdown to help and feed nearby road workers and trapped residents, many of whom were running out of food, heat and other necessities.
Caltrans and Monterey County teamed up to organize convoys that allowed people to briefly leave the closure area, restock on supplies and get back home.
There also were food drops by helicopter, according to area resident Jill Knight, a noted singer-songwriter. She said those actions “saved my life.”
“This community really pulls together,” Knight added. “People grow food and share it here. The community to the north of me was a lifesaver.”
For Matt Ramey, “The hardest part was not being able to help,” he said.
Jim Ramey said his son would drive up to the closure each day and “stand and watch” as crews worked to clear the road.
Road, SLO County resort reopen
Midway through January, the rains lessened and then mostly stopped.
On Feb. 8, Caltrans moved the southern perimeter of the highway closure from the elephant seal viewing area, located four miles north of San Simeon, to Ragged Point, about seven miles north of Piedras Blancas Light Station.
A couple days later, the agency moved the northern end of the closure about five miles south from Lime Creek to Big Creek Vista Point. That’s about 27 miles north of the border between Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties.
The Rameys and the rest of the Ragged Point Inn staff went into hyper-speed mode as they geared up to open the resort to the public again.
“Almost immediately (after the road opened to traffic), all the suppliers started getting through,” Jim Ramey said, as well as his son.
He described a “flurry of activity for two days before we reopened the restaurant.”
“All the kitchen staff were back and very eager to help,” Jim Ramey said.
“I’m super thankful to the employees who came back.” Ramey added. “We appreciate the loyalty and dedication of all our employees who returned,” even though they had to go on unemployment during the closure.
Crews from Souza Construction of San Luis Obispo continue to work on the Polar Star cliff face and surrounding area. Ragged Point was open as of Feb. 17, but the Big Sur stretch of Highway 1 still was closed about 19 miles to the north at Pacific Valley.
According to Matt Ramey, business was still down at the resort as of Feb. 16 — even below average for this typically slow time of year.
Between reopening day and then, the inn had averaged an occupancy of about three to six rooms a night, he said.
However, the inn was fully booked ahead of the Presidents Day holiday weekend, he said.
Jim Ramey emphasized that many people trapped in the slide areas suffered more than did he, his wife and their son did.
“We did relatively better than most folks,” he said. “I had a generator. My wife was with me. We had food. ... I feel very fortunate.”
Even so, the closure was tough on all of them — especially not being able to get out, he said. “I’m a restless soul, so that part was traumatic.”
Being trapped in paradise, Jim Ramey said, “is still being trapped.”
This story was originally published February 20, 2023 at 5:30 AM.
