By Neil Farrell ~
The worst fears of Cayucans have come to pass — the County has shuttered the historic Vet’s Hall indefinitely.
The word came down May 4, before a meeting of the Cayucos Citizens Advisory Council meeting, which was moved at the last minute to the Cayucos Elementary School form the Vet’s Hall.
A structural analysis of the building concluded that the circa-1870s one-time shipping warehouse is not structurally sound and thus unsafe. “The roof is barely being held up right now,” said Dep. Public Works Director Dave Flynn. “The walls or roof could collapse if a strong wind blows in the wrong direction or if a moderate earthquake hits. We don’t want to close the Cayucos Veterans Hall, but we have no choice. Public safety is our top priority.”
The County won’t commit to how long the building, which along with the recently rebuilt Pier is at the heart of the community, will be closed, while they put together a plan and funding to fix it.
It may take some considerable time to get the Cayucos Veterans Hall up and running again, Flynn said, but it’s unclear at this time when the facility will be reopened.”
The County plans to bring the advisory council into the mix to work on the solution. The Hall is actually owned by State Parks and has been leased to SLO County for about 70 years (along with the Pier and Cayucos Beach). The County subleases it to the Cayucos Lions Club, which manages it and does routine maintenance — cleaning, set up and take down.
The Lions Club has booked the hall for more than 100 group and public events and some 40 private functions — mostly weddings, through the end of the year.
“This is a big inconvenience for a lot of people, which is why we’re working with the community to find alternative gathering places for those who have already reserved dates to use the Cayucos Veterans Hall,” Flynn said.
Apparently some parts of the Vet’s Hall are still usable, as the kitchen and bathrooms are not under the same roof as the main hall, where the damage was found. A large tent is being brought in, so some events could be held.
The Hall has a large outdoor barbecue with a patio/stage outside the kitchen, plus a small picnic area too that abuts the parking lot.
The County has known about some of the hall’s problems since at least last summer. A patio that abuts the pier was removed during the pier reconstruction and they tore out the siding on the beachside as well, covering it with Tyvek house wrap but never replacing the siding.
Flynn said they closed the building’s indoor stage “and repaired structural problems with the building’s south-facing wall this past winter, after a “stucco maintenance project in the summer revealed the wall’s problems.”
The County, he said, hired VerTech Engineering to complete the design plans for rehabilitation of the decks and the beachside exterior wall and “conduct a comprehensive structural analysis.”
That analysis was the literal nail in the coffin. “The analysis indicates that the nails holding the roof together are severely compromised and building lacks lateral bracing,” Flynn said, “which means that the roof or walls could collapse if a strong wind blows or an earthquake hits. In addition, the foundation has begun to fail due to corrosion.”
The engineering report hit May 3 and the County ordered the building closed on the 4th.
The Pier, Vet’s Hall and another historic structure, The Cass House, are all that remains of Capt. James Cass’ little empire that he built in the 320-acres of the Rancho Moro Y Cayucos Spanish Land Grant he had purchased in the 1860s. Capt. Cass built the Pier about 1876 and the adjacent warehouse at the same time (the main portion of the Vet’s Hall).
The third leg of Capt. Cass’ legacy — The Cass House — went through many years of abandonment and disrepair, looking not unlike the Munster Family home of TV fame or a haunted house.
A couple of people went broke in the 1990s and early-2000s trying to resurrect the Cass House. It was finally beautifully restored and reopened in 2008 as a 5-room B&B with a garden wedding/event center.
So it appears Cayucos residents and visitors, who endured 2 years without the Pier, will likely have to endure 2 more years without the Vet’s Hall. Time is catching up with “The Town that Time Forgot.”