Names on the Signs in Santa Cruz: Before La Bahia

This week’s dose of local history is somewhat of a departure from the chronological progression followed to this point – jumping forward about 40 years.

The recent flap over the proposed La Bahia Hotel project got me thinking about the history of large hotels in Santa Cruz, and specifically about hotels at the main beach.

The last of those, the monolithic Dream Inn, is still very much with us. To find the first, however, you have to look back almost 100 years.

The Sea Beach Hotel reached its final form and opened for business under that name in 1890. Built in the late-Victorian Shingle style, it was the first large building on the land side of what is now Beach Street.

The 180 rooms of the Sea Beach easily outnumbered the proposed 125 rooms at La Bahia. The Beach Street end of the hotel had four stories above the main lobby floor, which was already well above street level.

Unrestrained by modern building-height standards, the Sea Beach made no attempt to stair-step up the hill, so the roofline was horizontal and the uphill end of the structure was not as tall relative to ground level.

No doubt the developers would have built the hotel taller if they could, but the new “skyscraper” building technology was still in its infancy. The Sea Beach pushed the limits of 19th century wood-frame building methods.

The hotel’s opening coincided with the height of Santa Cruz’s popularity as a beach resort. Even President Teddy Roosevelt came for a visit in 1903.

Tourists mostly arrived by steamship from San Francisco, or by train from San Jose (yes, passenger trains went “over the hill” back then).

In those last years before automobiles took over, electric trolleys moved visitors and residents around town, stopping in front of the Sea Beach (there's one in the photo), the Casino and Boardwalk, the bathhouses and other businesses along the beachfront. Unfortunately, the early 20th century lacked modern fire-safety technology and regulations. At 3:30 a.m. on June 12, 1912, the Sea Beach Hotel burned to the ground in a spectacular blaze that filled Main Beach with spectators.

The same fiery fate had already consumed the first Casino in 1906, and would eventually destroy nearly all of the large Victorian-era hotels in our area. The Sea Beach Hotel, unlike the Casino, was never rebuilt. That block today is home to a variety of buildings, the largest being the Casablanca Inn.

Further Reading

• Chase, John Leighton. The Sidewalk Companion to Santa Cruz Architecture. The Museum of Art and History (third edition - 2005)
• Santa Cruz Public Library, Local History Photographs (viewable online).
• Jack Arneson’s historical photos (Facebook)