Popular hotel once sat at base of SLO County pier. Then a lightning storm struck
The Pacific Ocean sparkled about several hundred feet below us as we looked south to Point Conception on a crystal blue day.
Ancient coast live oak trees rustled with birds and a light breeze.
Coast live oaks can live longer than 250 years, according to the book “Oaks of California.” That’s older than Mission San Luis Obispo.
These trees knew the Chumash, who relied on acorns for food.
They were witnesses to Spanish sailing ships and Mexican vaqueros.
They were also around in 1842, when Governor Juan Alvarado gave Rancho San Miguelito, a Mexican land grant of more than 14,000 acres including Point San Luis, San Luis Obispo Bay and present day Avila Beach, to Miguel Avila.
Most of the land along the coast was eventually split into smaller parcels and sold.
The ranch land in the hills was purchased by cattleman Luigi Marre. He had already bought the Peco y Islay grant to the north that would later be the site of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant.
Marre’s heirs leased land to PG&E and after a bankruptcy and legal disputes ceded control to the utility.
A current court case involves the lease terms and future uses of a portion of the former Marre property known as Wild Cherry Canyon.
While Wild Cherry Canyon is closed to public access, there are similar views from the Pecho Coast Trail out to the lighthouse at Point San Luis.
In the late 1800s, the view from the ridge would have included the narrow gauge railroad that ran from the Harford Pier to San Luis Obispo and on south to Los Olivos.
This was the major economic terminus for two counties in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
If a train or steamship was delayed, people would need a place to stay.
According to a brief history written by Joy Fisher, Marre and his partner, a Mr. Gagliardo, bought the Pacific Hotel at the base of Harford Pier and renamed it Hotel Marre. The popular resort was known for fine Italian food.
For many years, the three-story structure held a commanding spot next to the tracks roughly where the Port San Luis Harbor District offices are today.
An advertisement that ran in the San Luis Obispo Tribune in 1892 called it “the pleasantest seaside resort on the coast,” noting it was “by steamer to Santa Barbara, 6 hours; 15 to San Francisco.”
The ad also highlighted Hotel Marre’s “elegant rooms, excellent table” and local attractions such as “bathing, sailing, rowing, fishing.”
Rooms were $2 a night.
By the mid-1930s, travel had drifted away from steamships and the Pacific Coast Railway to the Southern Pacific Railroad and the rapidly improving highway system.
On a normal news day, the storm that destroyed the Marre Hotel would have been the lead story in the Daily Telegram.
But Sept. 20, 1934, was not a normal news day.
Bruno Hauptmann was arrested for the kidnapping and murder of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh’s son, Charles Jr.
The epic lightning storm that hit the Central Coast was the second headline. Here’s the story:
Port San Luis Hotel Burns; Lightning Blast Hearst Sheds
ELECTRIC STORM
WREAKS HAVOC
This historic Marre hotel at Port San Luis was a blackened ruin Thursday, several animal barns and hay sheds at the W.R. Hearst castle were completely destroyed and minor damage unofficially reported following a series of spectacular county fires blamed partly on a severe electrical storm.
The Marre hotel burned shortly after midnight Wednesday night at the port. The Pacific Coast railway wharf was saved from the flames after Union Oil co. and P.C. railway crews prevented the spread of the fire.
It was not known Thursday how the hotel fire started. Some Avila residents blamed lightning but at the P.C. wharf it was believed a fire had been set by itinerants camped in or near the deserted building.
The W.R. Hearst animal barns burned Wednesday about noon after one had been struck by lightning in the storm that raged over the entire county Tuesday night and Wednesday.
Animals, Birds Escape
Deer, ostriches, emus and other strange creatures dashed for safety while a group of the famous animal buildings about halfway up La Cuesta burned completely.
Several thousand dollars worth of hay was reported destroyed.
The animal pens were of wooden construction and burned quickly after the lightning bolt struck.
W.R. Hearst, monarch of the vast mountain domain, is in Germany, but was immediately notified of his loss by castle attaches.
A report that two young women and a man at the castle were “knocked silly” by concussion from the lightning bolt were unverified. It was reported that one of the girls was drying her hair after a shampoo and that the lightning struck so close her hair was instantly dried.
Charles Brown, foreman of the P.C. crew in charge of fighting the Port San Luis hotel fire, said he did not believe lightning could have caused the blaze. Norman Holden of Avila, walking along the P.C. right of way shortly before the fire started, said that the lightning was flashing constantly in the vicinity of Port San Luis.
Union Oil men busy on shore overhauling their launch, the “Tiber,” first noticed smoke rising from the abandoned hotel building shortly after midnight.
The alarm was spread, and soon fire fighting crews were gathered.
The ancient frame structure went up in flames almost immediately, but it was possible to save the wharf which the hotel adjoins.
BUILT IN 1884.
The Port San Luis Hotel was a landmark of the county’s coast. It was built in 1884 by Luigi Marre. The fine veranda overlooking the bay, its position perched precariously back from the wharf and its situation at the end of the P.C. railways port line made the hotel immensely popular as a resort and rendezvous of young folks of the past generation.
In other days, excursion trains brought crowds of San Luis Obispo people to Port Harford and the Marre hotel for an evening’s fun. Gay soirees were held on weekends and holidays.
Before it burned, the old hotel contained one of the few old time bar rooms left in the county, with its long bar, brass rail, voluptuous pictures, big cuspidors and bar chairs.
A pile of bottles back of the hotel testified to gay champagne revels of other days.
