Asilomar ideal for quarantined cruise passengers
Quarantine me as long as you like. Just make sure you quarantine me at Asilomar.
For this peculiar time, there may be no more desirable California place than Asilomar, and not just because it’s a lovely state park, with a beach, hotel and conference grounds on a small strip of coastal Monterey County. It’s also a versatile refuge where Californians can either isolate themselves or be with others.
I’d been pining for Asilomar’s pines long before the coronavirus shut down our daily lives. Months ago, my family made reservations to spend part of April’s spring break there. Asilomar is that rare location where I, an energetic person who works all the time, can actually relax.
Then Gov. Gavin Newsom blew up our plans, closing the hotel so it could be used to quarantine passengers exposed to COVID-19 on the Grand Princess cruise ship. Asilomar could become a major center for quarantine and isolation as the pandemic worsens.
This prospect has raised concerns among Monterey-area citizens and media. But such worries miss the point of the place. Just as California has been a refuge for people around the world, Asilomar has long been a refuge for Californians. In this sense, it’s one of California’s Californias.
Asilomar’s origins lie in the efforts of the Young Women’s Christian Association to shelter and train young women who relocated to cities in the early 20th century. For this, the YWCA needed a West Coast location for meetings and camps. Asilomar, designed by renowned architect Julia Morgan, opened in 1913. A Stanford student invented the name by combining the Spanish words for refuge (asilo) and sea (mar).
By the 1920s, Asilomar was used year-round, by camps, colleges, churches, conferences and other Californians seeking refuge. A distinct vibe of “quietness” developed. A 1931 newsletter by camp workers described the “differentness” of life where the sounds included “the moan of the wind and the drip of water from the fog-clad pines.”
Asilomar nearly didn’t survive the Great Depression. In 1934, the YWCA voted to close and sell Asilomar. But no one would buy it. Asilomar was briefly leased to motel owners. During the war, it served as living quarters for military families from Fort Ord.
Postwar, the YWCA reopened the grounds as a money-making conference facility, even as it was trying to sell the place. By the 1950s, Pacific Grove residents and other local communities, afraid the property would be sold to a glass company for sand extraction, formed a Save Asilomar Committee. That inspired state legislation that made Asilomar a state park in 1956.
The place has grown since. In the 1960s and 1970s, new structures were added according to a master plan by San Francisco architect John Carl Warnecke, best known for his John F. Kennedy memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. The state acquired adjacent land for environmental reasons, and restored Asilomar’s dune ecosystems.
Over time, Asilomar has developed a reputation as a good location for serious thinking — especially for Californians exploring the future of science. Most famously and controversially, in 1975, scientists meeting there ended a moratorium on recombinant DNA research and designed new “Asilomar Conference”
guidelines for genetic manipulation that prevail today.
Despite its renown, Asilomar still feels gloriously disconnected. The rooms don’t have phones or televisions. The beds are simple and comfortable. The rates are reasonable.
You don’t do much at Asilomar. You can walk the trails, bird-watch or play pool. Those guests now in quarantine can’t leave their rooms, but, for that, I mostly envy them. Asilomar is a terrific place to sleep and read.
On my last Asilomar visit, I reread Raymond Chandler’s “The Big Sleep,” and underlined this passage: “Under the thinning fog the surf curled and creamed, almost without sound, like a thought trying to form itself on the edge of consciousness.”
Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zócalo Public Square.