The National Park Service has hired a private company to operate the Point Reyes Hostel, ousting the nonprofit group that has been managing the operation since it opened 51 years ago. The hostel will also get a new name: the Limantour Lodge.
Pinnacles Recreation, the small family-owned company that won the 10-year concession contract, operates the campground and store at Pinnacles National Park east of the Salinas Valley. It will operate here as the Point Reyes Lodging Corp.
Grant Cunningham, the company C.E.O., said he has no immediate plans to raise rates or change staffing and will continue to operate the lodge as a hostel with a mix of private and shared rooms, shared bathrooms and communal dining areas.
“Over time, we plan to improve some of the furnishings, add amenities and upgrade technology, but our immediate priority is to make the transition as smooth as possible for the visitors and the staff,” Mr. Cunningham said.
The new operators will assume management on Oct. 17, taking the reins from Hosteling International USA, the nonprofit that has been running the hostel since it opened in 1972.
The park service, which opened bidding for the contract in January, declined to provide details about the number of bids it received, the companies that competed or how their proposals differed. It will post the new contract online when the transition takes place.
“We do not discuss the details of any concession contract proposals due to their proprietary nature,” said Sue Eibeck, a concessions management specialist at the park’s regional office in San Francisco.
A panel of federal employees evaluated the proposals and graded them according to various criteria, including applicants’ previous experience managing park services, financial strength, marketing abilities and commitment to preserving the natural resources of the Point Reyes National Seashore. Bidders also competed on proposed concession fees, specifying the percentage of revenues they would offer the park.
News of the concession award came as a shock to the staff of Hosteling International USA, the nonprofit whose volunteers refurbished an old ranch house and transformed it into a hostel in 1972. The organization manages 15 hostels in the United States and is affiliated with hostels operating around the world. Its mission is “to help all, especially the young, gain a greater understanding of the world and its people through hostelling.”
“We’ve had 51 years of really consistent and excellent service,” said Danielle Brumfitt-Norris, a spokeswoman. “We continually receive high review scores from our guests, and we’ve had an amazing level of engagement from our volunteers over the last half-century.”
Beds in the hostel’s dorm rooms cost $50 a night. “We’ve really focused on keeping the hostel accessible,” Ms. Brumfitt-Norris said. “We’re not looking to charge the highest rates. We’re really focused on trying to give folks options for travel.”
Before the pandemic, the hostel offered programs for elementary school students who would stay for a night or two and participate in an environmental program led by a naturalist with knowledge of the seashore’s flora and fauna. With money raised by volunteers, it offered scholarships to schools with a high percentage of students who qualified for the federal school lunch program.
“It was our volunteers who literally went in and painted the walls and repaired the building and set it up as a hostel,” Ms. Brumfitt-Norris said. “It’s just been a pretty devastating loss.”
Among those volunteers were Dave and Linda Allen, a Santa Rosa couple who helped renovate the hostel five decades ago. They were married in 1962 and toured Europe by bicycle a year later, staying in hostels along the way.
“We wanted to develop hostels in California so that cyclists traveling here could have good places to stay without spending a lot of money,” said Mr. Allen, a retired engineer who helped install wire and plumbing in the hostel.
Ms. Allen, who spent many hours helping paint the building before it opened, said she was devastated. “We had no clue that this would be given to some other organization out of the blue. We have a lot of history there,” she said.
The current hostel management promotes the rustic décor—even the lack of internet access—as a selling point, calling the hostel “a perfect place to escape civilization and enjoy a digital detox.” Although Mr. Cunningham said he plans some technological upgrades, he said he has no plans to raise rates or change the room configurations, and he will give current staffers a chance to stay on.
The hostel manager, Hanna Morris, has lived on the site for over 16 years and hopes to remain. “In that time, I’ve met my husband, gotten married and raised our daughter, who’s 11,” she said. “This is our family home. It would be a big change if we had to leave in three months.”
The hostel, she said, is more than just a place to get a good night’s sleep.
“We place a great emphasis on helping young people become stewards of the earth,” she said. “Our mission is to promote intercultural understanding and break down barriers between people of different backgrounds. It’s a great mission. I believe in it.”