The man above is my great-grandfather, Ray. I would give anything to spend a weekend with Ray in Big Sur talking about Big Sur. There’s so much I’d like to know about him and his wife Meriel and their adventures in cabin building. Neither of them kept journals, or if they did, they have since been lost.
According to the deed, Ray bought our 20 Acres in Big Sur in 1912 for $100. With inflation, that’s the equivalent of about $2,500 today. An amazing deal by any measure!
The story of his purchase is pretty murky. As far as we understand, Ray bought the deed in San Francisco from a man in an elevator, having never seen the plot of land that he was purchasing. In fact, there was no trail to the land at the time, and no easy way to scope it out. He apparently knew Big Sur to at least some extent though. Based on what he knew, he asked the seller two very important questions before exchanging his money for the deed:
- Is there a water source on the land?
- Is there a reasonably sized area that’s flat enough to build a cabin?
Yes and yes.
Our 20 Acres has a spring mouth in the canyon and a small flat stable ground on one of the cliffs. Done deal.
In 1913, Ray and Meriel (also the namesake of my mom Meriel) honeymooned at an old homestead just north of our 20 Acres. I’m guessing that many of their earlier years after the honeymoon were spent surveying the land and building a trail running from the coast highway to the area that would serve as the build site. I’m certain that this trail work was treacherous and extremely difficult.
In the 1920’s and 1930’s, Ray and Meriel built a cabin on those wonderful 20 Acres, with the help of their son David, their daughter Ginny, and other family members and friends. Each summer, for an unknown number of years, they transported supplies from the Bay Area as far as they could on the coast highway, strapped those supplies to mules and to their backs, moved those supplies up the trail they built to the build site, and spent a few weeks working on building a cabin.
They called the original cabin “Eagles Roost.” With the help of various upgrades over the years, that cabin amazingly stood until 2008.
Sometime after Eagle’s Roost was finished, they also built a guest cabin and shower house. Legit.
Side notes: when Ginny was a kid, she collected the rocks to build the original cabin’s fireplace, which still stands today as part of the new cabin. Before she passed, she wrote a very entertaining and insightful letter detailing her recollections of the early 20 Acres years. You can read it in the first comment on this picture.
Ginny, who I call Gram, was my bad-ass grandmother, and the mother of my uncle Dick, my mom Meriel, my aunt Robin, and my uncle Tim. She’s the only one of the above noted original pioneers that I’ve ever had to pleasure to meet, and we had a very special friendship for many many years. I’m named after her first husband, my grandfather, Scotty. I never got a chance to meet Scotty before he passed, but I’m told he was a pretty awesome guy.
During their 25 years of marriage, Ginny and Scotty spent a lot of time up at the cabin looking ridiculously cool, putting in work, and hanging out with various family and friends.
In another lifetime full of adventures, Ginny spent another 25 years of marriage enjoying and watching over 20 Acres with her husband, Herb. Herb was the grandfather that I did know when I was growing up, and he and Ginny adored each other.
Although I don’t remember, I’m told that I was three years old the first time I went to the cabin, and that I went with Ginny/Gram and my mom/Meriel. I’m also told that I hiked up with my hands in my mom’s back pockets to make sure I didn’t fall off any cliffs, which is the traditional way to hike up with the very youngest of the youngsters in my family.
I don’t remember those specifics, but one of my very earliest life memories takes place at 20 Acres, and it involves Gram (it may have been on that trip or it may have been on another). We were hiking and Gram was carrying a shovel-head for some reason (likely the handle needed to be replaced and she was taking the head somewhere to do just that). On the trail, we came across a rattlesnake blocking our path. Gram approached the rattler with the shovel-head drawn. She then bent down and calmly pushed the snake off of the trail while sweetly saying “please move out of our way rattlesnake.”
Yes, my grandmother escorted a freaking rattlesnake out of our way with nothing but a short shovel-head and a calm and friendly demeanor.
