A century ago, this was the grounds of the Pebble Beach Hotel and livery, a luxurious seaside property built by Loren Coburn, the largest landholder in San Mateo County at the time. An immigrant from New England to the California goldfields in 1851, he had made a fortune there and later in business in Oakland and San Francisco. The 1916 history of San Mateo County says he “has won the esteem of his fellow citizens by his worthy efforts to make himself an honor to the land of his adoption.”
The biography was a whitewash. Coburn was in fact the most hated citizen of his then hometown, Pescadero. With his earnings he had purchased the Punto del Ano Nuevo Rancho, an old Spanish land grant extending from Ano Nuevo up to Pescadero Creek. It encompassed this small Pebble Beach, a source of wave polished stones that the locals and tourists in Pescadero had come to regard as their prerogative. Coburn enclosed the beach, charged admission to what had been free, and began construction on his resort in the 1890s.
Having offended the community, Coburn found himself repeatedly in court, sued for access, and his hotel was blackballed. Due to this, or perhaps its remoteness from the village of Pescadero and its stagecoach road, it was apparently never a commercial success. It was eventually torn down for scrap, and 174,000 board feet of redwood salvaged. Later, the route of Highway One was blasted through the small headland where the Pebble Beach Hotel had stood, destroying even its foundations. (Comparison of waterside rock formations in the ‘then’ and ‘now’ photos will show its location.)
This is a small cache with room for a few small trade items, best reached from the Pebble Beach parking lot along the Hiway 1 shoulder. (There is also a small trail from the beach: Beware of poison oak there.) Bring a pen or pencil.
Feral calla lilies, and a stand of cypress that may date back to the hotel can be found on the inland, uphill side of Hiway 1 here. Benchmark fans note: HT1515 is in the south end of the nearby road cut. Our coords for it were N 37 14.307 W 122 24.983. We were unable to recover HT1514 supposed to be in the north end of the cut. Perhaps you can do better. Update: Congrats to cjf for locating HT1514, still on duty!