Cambria’s meadow sign has mysterious past, new coat of paint

When I came to town in the fall of 2014, one of the first things I noticed was the cool wooden sign facing northbound traffic on Highway 1, just south of Cambria Drive.

“Welcome Traveler,” it reads, inviting motorists to take the next right turn for gas, food and lodging, also touting motels and the Cambria Chamber of Commerce.

The three-posted wooden sign, its letters punctuated with the forms of half a dozen sea birds, seemed iconic the first time I saw it, and indeed, it’s been there a long time.

No one seems to know exactly how long.

“The sign has been there as long as I can remember, and I moved here in 1970,” said Jo Ellen Butler, executive director of Friends of the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve (FFRP).

Consuelo Macedo, community relations director for the Cambria Historical Society, pointed out that the sign wouldn’t have been there before the mid-’60s, when the highway bypass replaced the old State Route 1 alignment along Main Street through town. She said the signs probably went in “after 1965” as a means of directing tourists back toward the town and its businesses, now partially obscured by the pine forest.

Lengthy process

Although the sign itself seems sturdy, the white-painted lettering appeared weathered when I first saw it. I wondered to myself why this vintage sign – so clearly visible from the highway near the road that serves as a key entryway to Cambria — wasn’t looking a little better.

Now, it is — thanks to the efforts of the Chamber of Commerce and a grant from the Cambria Tourism Board.

Today, the formerly faded lettering glistens a brighter shade of white, thanks to a new coat of paint, some sanding and related work to refurbish the sign.

Total cost: $850.

“That’s all it took,” said Mary Ann Carson, the chamber’s executive director. “It’s just so much nicer, and it was so easy.”

But the overall process of sprucing up the meadow sign, as it’s known, has been anything but easy.

In February 2000 — 16 years ago — The Brambles Dinner House planned to host a fundraising dinner at $65 a plate to pay for refurbishing the sign, which even then had seen better days. The dinner raised $1,650, and the chamber brought in artists to submit potential new designs for the sign.

But then the owners of the East West Ranch told the chamber nothing could be done because sale of the land was pending.

In November 2000, after massive fundraising efforts by the community, the Cambria Community Services District bought the property. (On Feb. 23, 2006, CCSD renamed the 430 acres as Fiscalini Ranch Preserve, a much-loved oceanfront park laced with trails and a hefty chunk of Cambria’s rare, native Monterey pine forest.)

In 2004, nothing had been done to improve the sign in the ranch meadow, and there was a push to remove it altogether. Carson wrote a letter to then-CCSD Manager Vern Hamilton in November 2002 stating that the chamber had been “advised by the CCSD that the chamber sign in the meadow near Santa Rosa Creek and Highway 1 needed to be removed. … The reason was cited as ‘promoting private business on publicly owned property.’ ”

According to a timeline provided by Carson, the sign was allowed to stay, then survived another threat of removal from the CCSD in 2004.

Still, no work was done on it until late last year, when chamber board President Mel McColloch obtained permission from the CCSD to give the sign a makeover.

Getting permission

“It was all about getting permission,” Carson said. “Permission from the Planning Department, permission from the CCSD, permission from the Friends of Fiscalini Ranch — all to repaint a sign.”

Butler said that “Since it was still standing and strong but in pretty shabby shape, CCSD and FFRP agreed that it could get a face lift, with conditions to protect the ground from paint, etc. The contractor did a fine job and it now looks much better.”

The work was done in the span of a single month.

But there’s still one caveat: Because commercial signs aren’t allowed on the ranch under the conservation easement, it was agreed that the sign could only stay “until it fell down, and then it would be removed,” Butler said.

So although superficial improvements, such as a new paint job, are fair game, structural changes aren’t allowed.

Carson confirmed that “when it erodes and falls down, it’s gone. That’s still the understanding.”

It could, eventually, fall down. A sign on the southbound side of the highway, just south of Burton Drive, appears to be leaning forward and slightly sideways. It’s in a stand of pines that obscures it from view unless you’re actually looking for it — which I was.

Like the meadow sign near Cambria Drive, this one’s made up of vertical wooden planks in a fencelike row with white lettering. It’s somewhat less elaborate than its counterpart, and the top row of letters — which spells out “Cambria Pines Lodge” — is significantly more faded than the second row, which reads “Cambria Village.” Below them is a third row, in a different font and all capital letters: “next left turn.”

It’s still standing, but it looks like it could fall down at any time.

The same can’t be said for the meadow sign, which stood firm and fully upright amid Cambria’s recent windy weather and appears plenty sturdy – no matter how old it is.

It looks like travelers will continue to see at least one warm, wooden welcome to Cambria for a little while longer.

This story was originally published February 10, 2016 at 9:56 AM with the headline "Cambria’s meadow sign has mysterious past, new coat of paint."