Grandson of an American president once lived a bohemian life in the Oceano Dunes
Trying to own a dune is like trying to hold onto a fist full of sand.
And yet it hasn’t stopped dreamers in the Oceano Dunes.
The wildly optimistic La Grande Beach development, which was advertised as “future Atlantic City of the Pacific” in 1907, tried to carve the dunes up into lots selling for as little as $150 with the option to finance at $5 down and $5 a month.
Most people found the problems of living in dunes more trouble than living in already established towns.
When the sands of time ran out on that development, the elaborate pavilion was salvaged for other uses.
By the 1930s a group of free spirits who would become known as the Dunites found respite from everyday life in a series of cabins in the dunes.
One of the freest spirits was the grandson of Chester A. Arthur, the 21st president of the United States.
President’s grandson goes from New York to Oceano Dunes
The grandson, Chester Alan Arthur III, went by the Gallic version of Alan — Gavin.
Raised in a well-to-do household, he attended Columbia College in New York.
He became known as Gavin while being involved with the Irish Republican movement.
In 1930 he was one of the principal actors in a European avant-garde silent film “Borderline” with Paul Robeson. The plot included a taboo interracial love triangle and cutting edge cinematic moves. The film was far enough ahead of its time that it was rediscovered, restored and sometimes shown in film classes.
By 1931 Gavin had left Europe and arrived at the Oceano Dunes. Amid the drifting sand, he envisioned a utopian community south of Arroyo Grande Creek.
The Dunites were not a monolithic community. They were a collection of iconoclasts. Many chose to be there for hermetic solitude and isolation, while others were sometimes friends and sometimes on the outs.
Gavin’s area became a small complex of cabins known as Moy Mell, which means “Pastures of Honey” in ancient Gaelic.
It helped that Gavin had family money. He enjoyed inviting city friends for intellectual debate and drink.
According to “The Dunites” book author Norm Hammond, when conversations got too heated, Gavin could check out and go surf fishing.
Gavin was a poet and edited and published a series of literary magazines titled “Dune Forum” that you can read on the South County Historical Society’s web page thanks to scans by Vivian Krug Cotton.
He knew F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt though there is no record of them visiting him at the dunes.
After one “stimulating evening of discussion,” guests who included composer John Cage were being ferried back to Arroyo Grande when the car was hit by a wave while crossing a rain-swollen Arroyo Grande Creek.
The car stalled and despite the best efforts of the passengers to push the vehicle out, “poor Belinda had sunk almost out of sight. A braver little car never went down to a more noble death in the line of duty.”
End of an era at the Oceano Dunes
The loose affiliation of Dunites began to fall apart at the opening of World War II.
The flat, wide, sparsely populated beach was seen as a prime invasion path, and Gavin offered Moy Mell to the Coast Guard during the war.
The golden age of the Dunites was over, and the dunes became a destination for off-road recreation. The era of hermetic solitude ended, and Gavin went on to other things.
In 1956 he won $32,000 on a TV quiz show answering questions about Shakespeare. He gave the money to charity.
In the early 1960s, he had helped Jackie Kennedy locate stored and forgotten art objects to redecorate the White House.
He described his bohemian life as ‘pre-hippie hippie” and spent his later years studying astrology and writing a book called “Circle of Sex.”
According to reviews, the book disputes binary distinctions and categorized 12 different types of sexuality.
Eventually, the degree he started at Columbia was finished at San Francisco State.
In the last two decades of his life, money got tight and he was often seen on the streets of San Francisco selling newspapers.
According to an Associated Press obituary published April 30, 1972, Gavin died at the age of 71 at a veterans hospital after suffering from a heart condition and diabetes.
His cabin, the last surviving piece of Moy Mell is now next to the Oceano Depot.
The Oceano Depot is celebrating Dunite Days on the weekend of August 27-28 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
This story was originally published August 13, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
