Recently, Joan McCloud Mertz, a great supporter of the local cultural community of Santa Cruz County, has passed at the age of 98. Joan McLeod Mertz and her late husband Karl were very involved in the conversion of the old county jail into the McPherson Center for Art & History. Joan and Karl were married in 1993 and constructed a home on the Mangels Ranch. Karl formerly owned the historic Mangels House. Karl and Joan’s donations provided many artifacts to the Aptos History Museum of which Karl was a board member until he passed in 2016 at the age of 99. They will be missed. Both Joan and Karl lived up to this motto “The idea is to die young – as late as possible”
Now for our story.
Bay View Hotel
by John Hibble
The Bay View Hotel is the last survivor of five turn-of-the-century hotels in Aptos Village. It was built by Joseph (Jose) Arano in 1878.
Joseph Ernest Arano was born in Montpellier France in 1837. His father was a Spanish Basque and his mother was French. He emigrated first to Cuba, then New Orleans. He came west to San Francisco to work in the theater and spent some time in the gold fields. He arrived in Aptos in 1854 at the age of 17.
Joseph was a gentleman, fluent in Spanish, French, English and Basque and was included in a small circle of friends that Don Rafael Castro entertained at his hacienda. (Castro’s home used to stand about where the western railroad bridge crosses Highway One.) In 1862, Joseph married Rafael’s daughter, 18-year-old Augustia Marie, at Saint Francis Church of the Pajaro Valley.
In 1867, he leased some land from Rafael Castro – for 10 years at $5 per year – and built a grocery store, with a residence above. It sits at the corner of today’s Soquel Drive & Aptos Wharf Road. Wharf Road was the main street of town, and it connected to Castro’s wharf at the beach. This building still stands at 7996 Soquel Drive and is the second oldest building in town. In 1870, Joseph was granted the first post office in Aptos, and he became the first postmaster.
In the early days, travel to Watsonville was difficult. The county road (Soquel Drive) wound down and through the creeks. The current site of Aptos Village, on the eastern side of Aptos Creek, was isolated until bridges were built in 1860. Frederick Hihn, (Heen), Claus Spreckels and other investors built the Santa Cruz Rail Road and brought it inland across two creeks to connect all the land Hihn owned in what is now Aptos Village and Valencia. The first trains ran from Santa Cruz to Aptos in May of 1875, bringing celebrants to Spreckels’ Aptos Hotel grand opening. The fare was 50 cents. The line was completed to Pajaro the following year. On May 22nd, 1876, trains left Pajaro and Santa Cruz and met in Aptos for the grand opening of the line.
The railroad encouraged lumbering in the Aptos hills and the town expanded across the creek to support the industry. Joseph decided to build himself a hotel in the center of the new part of town. He bought property at the corner of the county road, (Soquel Drive), and Trout Street from his sister-in-law, Maria Antonia Castro Bernal, wife of Guadalupe Bernal. Joseph personally inspected every board of lumber used to build the hotel. He ordered the finest marble fireplaces from France and had furniture hand crafted in Spain. Ralph Mattison, a lifelong Aptos native, speculated that Claus Spreckels may have even helped Arano build the hotel so that Spreckels would have a place to send some of his rowdier guests instead of having them at his famous Aptos Hotel on Spreckels Drive.
The new building opened in 1878 as the Anchor House and advertised in 1879, “with accommodations for travelers”. It was listed in Elliot’s 1879, Illustrated History of Santa Cruz County, as having 28 large and sunny rooms in elegant order. A formal garden was adjacent to the building on the west side as a buffer against the lumber activity.
Actually, the Anchor House was primarily the Arano home until 1883. A news story announced that Arano’s “fine building” is being enlarged and fitted up for a hotel. This purpose was originally intended but Mr. Arano declined going into the hotel business until the present season.” For the 1883 summer season the name had been changed to the Bay View Hotel. Arano moved the grocery and post office to the new building. A lobby, a bar, and a dining room became part of the new building.
In October 1881, the Southern Pacific bought the Santa Cruz Rail Road at auction and began laying standard-gauge track which was completed by September 1883. The two years of construction severely affected access to Spreckels’ Aptos Hotel. Also, Spreckels’ Aptos Hotel was no longer as popular since the Hotel Del Monte opened in Monterey in 1880, and it had been closed for three years during the track replacement.
It may not be obvious now, but the Bay View Hotel had an expansive view of the Monterey Bay at that time. Mrs. M. A. Arano was listed as the proprietress. The following year, more improvements were made, and an addition was added to the rear of the building. 1884 advertisements listed Jos. Arana as the sole proprietor. By 1886, Arano had added a mahogany-topped bar, two refrigerators for the barroom, and a wing of rooms facing Trout Gulch Road.
Historian, Sandy Lydon speculates that the hotel was designed by architect Thomas Beck. The style is very similar to several Beck designs such as the Mansion House in Watsonville and the Riverside Hotel. The building is described as Late Victorian-Italianate architecture, with a Parisian style, flat mansard roof with a cupola on top. This type of roof was popular in France because it made buildings look one story smaller at a time when buildings were taxed on the number of stories. The cupola was removed sometime between 1893 and 1918 and replaced with the peaked roof of today which included a fourth story attic.
Joseph prospered, and the hotel became famous for its Spanish dinners. Joseph was the bartender and bookkeeper and eventually his children, Amelia and Ed helped out. Amelia took over completely at the age of 27 when Joseph disappeared from November 1890 to November 1900 with the $3,000 proceeds of a land sale to Peter Larson, the retired manager of Spreckels’ ranch. While Joseph was gone, his wife, Augustia, became an invalid and died a few weeks after surgery on February 4, 1896, at the age of 52.
Amelia Arano and Clara Walsh volunteered to nursemaid William H. Dawson, who was terminally ill with cancer. When he died in 1904, he bequeathed his farm to the two girls. Amelia acquired 54.4-acres that included the area known as Deer Park.
On September 21, 1928, the service wing of the hotel caught fire at 6:10 in the evening. Deputy Sheriff Ralph Mattison arrived at the hotel and arrested R. W. Moore, a 55-year-old carpenter who was employed to attend Joseph Arano. Moore was intoxicated and had been threatening Arano with a gun. Moore was booked into county jail. Mattison, who was also part of the local fire brigade, said all they could do was to cut the service wing loose from the main building and let it burn. A call was put into the Watsonville Fire Department to help save the hotel. The blaze was confined to the one-story wing of the hotel that was used as a kitchen and dining room. The fire was a great blow to old Joseph, and he died a week later at the age of 91.
In 1942, Amelia offered the Bay View to Fred and Elma “Babe” Toney at a very reasonable price. Fred had a thriving hardware business and was looking for a better location. He chose the corner of Soquel Drive and Trout Gulch Road. His initial plans were to tear down the hotel and use the lumber, but a local public utility crew needed lodging, so he decided instead to move the hotel. He couldn’t find a house mover who would do the job so he, Victor Aguirre, Martin Rickard and some friends did it themselves. In 1946, they jacked it up, put it on rollers and moved it 118 feet to the west into the old formal garden, which is why the old magnolia tree is now in front of the hotel. Then he proceeded to construct the commercial building for his hardware store, which now occupies the corner location.
Amelia went to live in the Deer Park Barn, selling off property for income. She died in l954, at age 91. A replica of the old barn stands in the upper Deer Park shopping center.
Fred Toney added modern plumbing and electricity to the Bay View. He partitioned the rooms and added bathrooms and enclosed the veranda in 1946. Fred and Babe started serving food in the old grocery and Babe added a line of gift items and antiques. Their children Gail, Pat, and Joyce helped them and soon the hotel was again famous for its family style meals from the Special Blue Plate Dinner for 85 cents to the Special Steak Dinner “A La Bay View” for $2.50.
After 30 years of operating the hotel, Fred’s health was declining so, in the early seventies the business was leased to Frank Leal and Pete Marchese who spent $150,000 in a two-year renovation that included the installation of forced air heating. A fire broke out in the attic in 1975, destroying the roof and some stored furniture but the roof was completely rebuilt. The tin sheeting from the original roof below the attic prevented the fire from spreading to the lower stories.
There is a tale that the King of Hawaii, David Kalakaua stayed at the Bay View. He did actually visit the county on October 18, 1881, to visit Clause Spreckels but did not stay the night.
The business has changed hands several times, with each new owner adding to the charm of the old building. Robert and Diane Deacon bought the property in 1973. The Bay View was named a California State Historic Monument in 1974 and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993.
In 1989, the property was sold to a consortium of investors known as Bayview Partners. The Hotel began operating as a bed & breakfast inn. The third floor was completely rebuilt in 2000, and new windows were added to the third floor. The number of guest rooms increased to eleven. The hotel and dining room were restored to a gracious elegance. The hotel has been sold twice since to Roland and Sandra Held, then to Christina Locke and Giovanni Guerisoli.
In 2002, the owners, painted the hotel in the Victorian “Painted Lady” style. It is the first time the hotel has been any color other than white.
The hotel was listed for sale in 2024 and is currently in contract. It was listed as having 14 guest rooms and suites with an on-site manager’s apartment.
In a building of this age, you might expect to find more spirits than are served at the elegant bar. Former innkeepers have heard someone outside in the upstairs hall when no one was around, and a former restaurateur was in the kitchen alone when pots began falling off their hooks. Also, one of the three hanging lamps in the dining room sometimes swings all by itself. After the novelty wears off, new proprietors become accustomed to small idiosyncrasies associated with seasoned properties. Guests, however, seem only to have quiet and peaceful stays.
August 2013, Revised January 2020, September 2021, August 2026
