Point Cabrillo Light Station, part of the California state park system as Point Cabrillo Light Station State Historic Park, had been on my to-visit-list for a while. Its location, on a spectacular headland on the Mendocino Coast between Mendocino Village and Fort Bragg is about 100 miles from my house in Petaluma, in neighboring Sonoma County. Close by some standards, far by others. For anyone familiar with this stretch of the coast, you'll know that 100 miles of winding roads through the meandering, hilly Anderson Valley and Navarro-riverside redwood forest is a three-and-a-half-hour minimum journey and requires at least two to three nights to make it worth the driving time.
There are two paths to the station on arrival. It's a little bit of a trek. A dirt path begins at the north end of the parking lot off Cabrillo Drive and takes you through introduced grassland and coastal prairie. A paved access road, which I took in the afternoon drizzle, is an easier, half-mile walk.
The lighthouse was built in 1909 when this stretch of the Pacific coastline was a major maritime freeway for boats transporting massive amounts of redwood from Mendocino and Fort Bragg to San Francisco. It was perilous navigation and sailing this rocky coastline in rough weather. Several ships wrecked in the waters a mile or two north of Mendocino. There was a big gap between the lighthouses at Point Arena and Point Reyes before the U.S. Lighthouse Service recommended the addition of Point Cabrillo. It is surrounded by 270 acres of undeveloped coastal bluffs. This State Park occupies the headland tht extends out into the Pacific.
Consider staying overnight at the Light Station if you're into authentic experiences. Check out the lighthouse keeper rental units. Some units are pet friendly. I didn't stay there overnight, but I walked through the Keeper house that has been turned into a museum. Its easy to imagine life in the early 1900s and how hard the family of the keepers, especially the women, worked to keep to rigid and robust routines. There are three restored Lightkeeper homes; the first house is the period museum of a lightkeeper’s house in the 1930s; the other two houses are comfortable vacation rental homes. The Lighthouse was restored in 2002 and is operated by the Point Cabrillo Lightkeepers Association, a non-profit that was formed to maintain this remarkable landmark within the State Parks system.
Currently, the still operational Lighthouse is open to visitors from 11am-4pm every day, as well as the Assistant Lightkeeper’s House Museum and Marine Science Exhibit .Click here for more of its history.
The keeper's houses are well preserved and attractive. I could imagine a fun few days turning back the clock with a 1920s, 30s or 40s house party!
My current work-in-progress is set in a beach house within a cliff erosion scenario on the Sonoma Coast, so it was interesting to read about the work taking place to minimise erosion along parts of the California coast.
I'm especially interested in the sights, sounds, smells, wildlife and weather along the coast when I'm on one of my writer's jaunts. As soon as I hit the redwood approach to Mendocino coast I feel the melancholy in the atmosphere of the land and ocean. This was utopia for thousands of years for the Pomo people and other tribes of the redwood region. The discovery of the redwoods during the Gold Rush as a resource and a fortune devastated the first people's way of life. Paradise was destroyed on so many levels. And yet the tireless work of the parks, conservationists and preservationists more recently in these storied parts is palpable and some consolation for what we did as European settlers in devouring the west.
Traversing the oceanside village of Mendocino, Northern California feels like a New England seaport community in design, yet its Pacific Ocean and Mendocino Headlands State Park surrounds are distinctly north, wild-west coast. This isolated and protected, historic district is a unique, 19th-century architectural treasure, populated by charismatic characters running small stores, galleries, the Mendocino Art Center, museum homes and eclectic inns, nestled amidst breathtakingly beautiful natural settings of grassy headlands, rocky shores and redwood forests.
Salt box cottages and Victorian homes with distinctive water towers and white picket fences are home to third, fourth generation families and more relative newcomers, drawn by an unspoiled lifestyle which remains financially viable as long as intrepid travelers venture this far out west.
I like this quote in the LA Times which explains the New England likeness: "They came, in the 1800s, for the whaling and the timber: the Kelleys, the Kastens, the MacCallums, the Hills, the Fords. They brought with them a powerful love of the sea and the tenacity to create new lives on the harsh and beautiful Northern California coast.
The homes they built and the village that grew up around them were mirror images of those they left behind in New England."
I left my phone charging in my car while I pottered around town, unlike me not to snap photos of the 1854 Ford House and the 1861 Kelley House Museum across the street. It was a treat to talk to the volunteers on duty that day, all of whom are snowbirders living in their trailers and giving their time at remote state park museums in return for a place to park up for an extended stay.
Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino is everything a bookshop should be and I spent a long time browsing a fantastic selection in multiple rooms, nooks and crannies. An emphasis on local books and books about Mendocino is a delight to see. Promoting local writers and artists should be the essence of a community bookstore in my humble opinion, but it doesn't always translate. Gallery Bookshop thinks out of the box with offers all kinds of fun activites, subscriptions and events. It's evident this is an area that places major emphasis on the enduring power of the arts. Any reader, young or old who has the chance to browse this particular bookstore can't help but be entranced.
Deciding where to stay in Mendocino isn't an easy choice as there are so many historic inns to choose from. Everyone has their favorite. I've stayed at the same inn several times over the past couple of decades and I was ready for something different since I hadn't been up to the town of Mendocino since before the pandemic. As with inland Mendocino, times are a changing with regards to inn and business ownership in the county.
Victorian inns and vacation rentals enjoyed a distinctive charm of yesteryear for so long, the region's slow growth and no-growth within the preservation area was part-and-parcel of a trip back in time. The last visit I made pre-2019 the town was bustling with vans and vehicles, growers and trimmers from the bouyant Cannabis industry that had bolstered the economy throughout the Emerald Triange (Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity Counties). Big cash flowed for quite a few years until legislation brought Cannabis prices down to record new lows. Not much evidence of the Green Rush in view today.
Then COVID hit and the hospitality industry was forced to shut its doors, independently owned inns and restaurants in Mendocino and surrounds were amongst the most impacted of any place along the California coast. This has led to a gradual reimagining of what today's visitors are looking for and expecting when traveling far up the coast from the Bay Area and beyond. A more modern approach to rustic, heritage hospitality has emerged.
Mendocino Inn and Farm bed and breakfast came highly recommended by a close friend who had stayed there more recently and was a frequent visitor before the sprawling 1867 inn was bought by Soul Communuty Planet group. She liked what the new owners have done to the place and so I decided to give it a try for a couple of nights. I was not disappointed. It was especially good to stay somewhere with low key, friendly staff and no fuss digs as I was traveling solo and looking to find some peaceful, quiet spot to write after my daily expeditions.
There are several buildings on site in which to stay, I enjoyed the garret in the original farmhouse. The whole place has been given a modern refresh, no fuddy-duddy bedding or funky old bathrooms. It's definitely the new Mendocino, as everything else felt original and authentic and suited to the times we live in.
I really liked the chickens and llamas and the breakfast basket delivered to my room. Common spaces in each part of the inn work well for groups of family or friends in which to congregate for a glass of wine or games in the evenings. The company's Every Stay Does Good Program is encouraging when paying the going rate for coastal accommodation these days. It's always more affordable to stay during weekdays.
SCP group has recently bought The Albion River Inn to the south. I'd like to try that spot next time as it looks directly over the ocean and hosts one of the best restaurants in the Mendocino area.
I took the coastal bluff hike north from the Mendocino Inn and Farm and headed back via William Kent's 1860 Pioneer Barn. It struck me that the change in guard in ownership of many of the inns in the area is not unlike the end of the era of dairy and cattle farms that studded the coastal pastures for over one hundred years. Once the lumber industry declined and the population of Mendocino and Fort Bragg dropped dramatically, there would've been a massive drop in demand for dairy goods locally. The advent of the highway delivering dairy and other products to regional markets was equally impactful.
It's our good fortune that many of these former farm houses have been restored and preserved as places to stay.
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