SLO County’s iconic beach town motel is embarking on a major renovation

For a decade, a once-thriving tourist destination in the heart of Avila Beach has been in various states of decay and reconstruction — but after a series of delays, the historic property finally has a plan to return it to its former glory.

As things go, the Dun Sailing Motel is an odd duck, overlooking much of Avila Beach from its sloping perch at 145 San Luis St.

Originally built in 1952 by Rose and Marshall Ellis, the pair of two-story buildings served a unique mix of apartments and hotel rooms, with most of its guests checking in for longer than month-to-month stays.

Jim Miller, the developer who wants to rejuvenate the property, said the motel has been out of service since the early 2010s and is long overdue for a facelift.

Miller and others involved in the hotel’s ownership initially tried to begin a renovation in 2018, but the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent revisions to California building codes created what Miller described as an “impossible situation” for the property, putting the renovation on hold.

But now, with more than 250 unique codes and permitting issues surrounding the property’s redevelopment resolved with the county, Miller and his team are finally moving forward with the motel’s revival.

“As I told (District 3 Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg) at one point, the wind was knocked out of my sails, frankly,” Miller said. “I need to get the wind back in my sails.”

Large scale renovations underway at Dun Sailing

As Miller’s team begins work on Dun Sailing, longstanding issues with the property will be among the first to be addressed, he said.

The property was in a state of disrepair when work began, with unfinished exterior walls and very little of its original appearance surviving into the 21st century, he said.

To start, Miller’s team is strengthening the north retaining walls of the project, which sit directly above the residential homes on San Miguel Street, fixing structural problems and resurfacing the driveway area, he said.

The redevelopment is not the first in the motel’s history, with signs of an expansion built in the early 1960s still visible today through a small change in elevation that bisects the building, he said.

A pool originally built in 1964, which was described in a September 1998 Telegram-Tribune article as the first built in Avila Beach, will also be relocated to better use the lot space, he said.

Some of the 24 old rooms will be combined to form larger units, with a total of 16 units plus a manager’s unit planned in the final construction, Miller said.

There is some dispute as to exactly how the motel got its name. In that 1998 Telegram-Tribune article, original builder Marshall Ellis said he named the motel Dun Sailing because he was “done going” as a builder of giant steel bridges across the country.

Over its lifetime, as it became a popular summer vacation spot, the name took on new meaning from its guests, said Ortiz-Legg, who helped Miller organize meetings with neighbors during the planning phase.

“Supposedly, the story goes that the guys would have gone off in their boats or something, and then their girls would have been up here and put a towel down on the thing to say, ‘You’re done sailing, now come back home and have dinner,'” Ortiz-Legg said.

New Dun Sailing aims to open within the next two years

While the design work will refresh the look of the motel, the one thing that won’t change is its intended use, Ortiz-Legg said.

“This is a commercial recreation area, so people would come here and rent a room for the summer or rent a room for a week with the family and things like that,” Ortiz-Legg said. “That’s how it will continue to be – it’s not a hotel, it’s not an apartment building, it’s a combination of both, in a way.”

Miller said the rooms will be available for a night, a week, a month, a year — whatever the renter or vacation party wants.

He said with the project’s countywide permitting and code issues resolved, construction is underway and could be completed within the next two years.

“I would say if we’re not done in two years, it’s my fault,” Miller said.