History

A spirited explorer and entrepreneur, W.B. Post spent his early years on the California coast where he hunted grizzly bears and deer. Later he became a businessman, starting the first grain warehouse in Moss Landing and the first butcher shop in Castroville.

In 1850, William Brainard Post married Anselma Onesimo, of Costanoan descent, with whom he had five children. When he took out a claim on 160 acres of land in Big Sur, he became one of the region’s first homesteaders. With the help of his sons, he built a cabin. The red New England-style house, a registered historical landmark, still stands on Highway 1 across from the entrance to Post Ranch Inn.

The Post family raised cattle and hogs and exported apples from a thriving orchard. W.B. and Anselma’s youngest son Joe married a neighbor, Elizabeth Gilkey. Joe eventually bought up claims from both of their families, accumulating nearly 1,500 acres, including the area on which Post Ranch Inn sits today. Together the adventurous couple ran the ranch and took hunters and fishermen on pack trips into the wilderness around Big Sur.

Their son Bill continued the family tradition of leading trips and working as a cowboy and rancher. While employed as the mail carrier from Monterey to Big Sur, Bill gave a ride to Irene Fredricks, a city girl whose romance with Bill turned her summer visit to Big Sur into a lifelong stay. The couple opened Rancho Sierra Mar, a small resort and café near the Post family home, which they ran with their two children, Billy and Mary.

Born in 1920, Billy Post lived in Big Sur most of his life and there were many chores to be done on the self-sufficient homestead. After serving in the Marine Corps in World War II, Billy came home to run the ranch. He was raising two daughters on his own when he met and married Luci, the love of his life. Over the years, it grew difficult to hold on to the old style of ranching.

In the early 1980s, a close friend and neighbor approached Billy and Luci with the idea of converting the land into an inn that would preserve the integrity and history of the Post family’s property. After shaking hands on the deal, they sealed the Post partnership with a shot of Jack Daniel’s, which has since become the Inn’s unofficial drink.

After auditioning several architects, an unknown local architect named Mickey Muennig, who had never designed a hotel, submits drawings for a Tree House, and Post Ranch never looked back. Mickey’s revolutionary innovative design utilized organic architecture intending for guests to feel a part of nature, not just observers of it. His design was revolutionary design for a hotel and shortly thereafter, he was named one of the top 100 architects in the world.

When an agreement was signed years later, the partnership bought Billy a tractor, which he used to complete nearly all of the excavation and grading to build the Inn. The Inn has been a Post family project in more ways than one. It was Luci’s idea to honor the early history of Big Sur by using the ranch’s cattle brand as the Inn’s logo and she put together the library. Billy named each guestroom in honor of the Post family and other Big Sur pioneers.

Billy’s sister, the late Mary Post Fleenor, ran the Rancho Sierra Mar Café until it closed in 1972. On its opening night in 1992, Sierra Mar Restaurant was dedicated to Mary’s memory. Billy Post, a loyal steward of this land for almost 90 years, was an exceptional and irreplaceable host for thousands of Inn guests for 17 years. While both Billy and Luci have since passed away, their love of the land and gentle, genial hospitality remain an inspiration to all who knew them.