Point Reyes Light - August 12, 1999
Grandi Building braced for the millenium
County building inspectors last week told Grandi Building owner Ken Wilson his project to stabilize Point Reyes Station's old, brick landmark is nearly complete.
"It's a whole lot better than it was," building inspector Steve Jensen told The Light this week. "At least it isn't going to fall down in an earthquake.."
At the same time, county planner Tod Carr noted Wilson has said his "goal is to return the Grandi to its original type of uses." Among those uses, he said, are "a restaurant on the first floor and a hotel on the second floor."
The hotel, as proposed, would have "about 24 rooms," Carr said. Wilson also proposes "some retail and office uses in the building," the planner added.
The planner said that "hopefully" Wilson's proposal will be considered by county planning commissioners later this year. At issue will be a use permit, design review, and a coastal permit to reuse the 84-year-old landmark.
AP Whitney & Company of Petaluma built the original Grandi Building of stone in 1883. Four years later, they sold it to Salvatore Grandi. The stone building collapsed in the 1906 earthquake, but Grandi rebuilt it out of wood, selling it two years later to nephew Reno Grandi and his partner Joe Codoni.
In 1915, Reno Grandi, his brother Ennio Grandi, and his father Louis Grandi, built the present building. "It seemed crazy to me that after the earthquake, they'd put up a brick building," recalled Bob Gallagher, 86, of Point Reyes Station on Monday.
In fact, if the building had been rebuilt with brick and reinforced with steel, probably all the work going on now would be unnecessary.
As originally built, the hotel served railroad men and passengers from the Northwestern Pacific. The first depot in Point Reyes Station depot was a two-story building located where the Station House Cafe is. Shortly after the 1906 earthquake, the two-story depot was replaced with a one-story depot, which around 1920 was moved slightly north to its present location.
There was a loading platform immediately north of the relocated depot, noted Gallagher, and Park Service photos from 1928 show the platform was long enough for loading at least four boxcars at a time.
The Grandi's now-boarded-up arcade along provided passengers using the original depots with protection from the elements. "It was a beautiful building," recalled Gallagher.
Today, that 80-year-old depot is the town postoffice (although the new owners of the Northwestern Pacific's engine house have recently confused local history by rechristening their building "The Depot.")
In any case, the Grandi Company flourished until the end of World War II. A general store operated downstairs and a hotel upstairs, where there was also a dance floor with regular weekend dances. In 1940, Lt. Col. Dwight D. Eisenhower stayed in the hotel 12 years before he was president.
In 1950, the hotel closed for good although the general store downstairs kept operating until the late 1970s when it was relocated across the main street as Building Supply Center.
In now making the Grandi seismically safe, the main work remaining is repairing the roof and making the building water tight, replacing damaged floor areas, repairing a "rotted column" in the northwest portion of the building, and providing engineering reports, Kevin McGowan from the county Department of Public Works wrote Wilson last week.
Planner Carr said his main concerns involve Wilson's ability to provide adequate parking and an adequate septic system for a building in which so many uses are planned.
Carr noted that Wilson so far has spent $27,255 on planning fees, reflecting the fact that the ultimate construction will cost over $1 million.