Historic Big Sur property, once owned by William Randolph Hearst, to get new owners

BIG SUR — It may be one of the most scenic Boy Scout camps in America — a rustic collection of cabins and campsites, with a dining hall, waterfalls, hiking trails, a rifle range and an outdoor amphitheater, all nestled under towering redwood trees on 718 acres in the Big Sur wilderness.

Newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst hunted and fished here in the 1920s and 30s, then donated the property to the Boy Scouts in 1948, allowing thousands of children to enjoy it for generations.

Now, 75 years later, Camp Pico Blanco is about to change hands in a deal that supporters hope will usher in a new generation of campers and return much of the property to the ancestors of its original inhabitants.

The Silicon Valley Monterey Bay Council of the Boy Scouts, based in San Jose, has agreed to sell the historic property to the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County, and two nonprofit groups: Camping Unlimited, which runs programs for disabled children, and White Stag Youth Leadership Development Academy, a Monterey group affiliated with scouting. The deal is currently in escrow and expected to close by the end of the year.

“It’s an exceptional property,” said Sue Doroff, president of the Western Rivers Conservancy, a Portland environmental group that is helping provide money for the deal. “Lands like this don’t change hands often.”

“When you get down in that canyon with those redwoods and the river,” she said, “it’s like you are a million miles from anything.”

Located off Palo Colorado Road, about 10 miles inland from Highway 1, the camp has been closed since 2016 when it nearly burned in the massive Soberanes Fire. The entrance road, a steep, 4-mile-long, single-lane dirt road, was damaged in heavy winter storms in 2017. It remains closed to the public.

The Boy Scouts put the property up for sale last year, asking $1.8 million for 368 acres where the buildings are located, and $1.6 million for another 350 acres of adjacent forest.

Dozens of bidders submitted proposals.

“Of all the options, this is the best one,” said Sam Farr, a former congressman from Carmel who camped there as a member of Boy Scout Troop 76. “It could have been a corporate retreat or an expensive hotel. Kids wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the wilderness camping experience.”

Farr, now 82, remembers sleeping in heavy canvas tents and eating hot dogs and beans during trips there in 1954 and 1955 when he was 13.

“There were all kinds of scary stories around the camp fire,” he said. “Some people said the workers who built the camp never got out. The mountain lions got them. Or that there was a wild man who roamed the place at night.”

“They had a beautiful lake there,” he said. “We got merit badges in swimming, learned water safety, shot .22 rifles, that kind of thing.”

Some details are still being worked out. But under the proposed sale, the Esselen Tribe will acquire at least 600 acres of forest. Camping Unlimited and White Stag will acquire the buildings, and run camping programs. Boy Scout troops still will be allowed some access.

For Camping Unlimited, a group founded in 1957 to provide summer camps for children with disabilities, the deal was a godsend.

The group’s main site, Camp Krem, near Boulder Creek, burned down in the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Fire. Although the group purchased a new camp property near Yosemite National Park, it sees a remarkable opportunity at Camp Pico Blanco, said Alex Krem, a former investment banker whose father started the organization.

“We fell in love with it,” he said. “It’s in pretty good shape. We could start camp tomorrow.”

His goal: Have some programs running by next summer.

For the Esselen Tribe, the property, which includes part of the Little Sur River, has deep spiritual meaning. The tribe’s members lived in Big Sur for 8,000 years before they were forced into Spanish missions in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Now they are slowly acquiring land again, reclaiming a sense of place and momentum.

“Land is valuable to us for natural resources, and cultural resources,” said Tom Little Bear Nason, the Esselen tribal chairman. “It gives us room to breathe.”

Two years ago, the tribe acquired Adler Ranch, a 1,200-acre property near Camp Pico Blanco, with funding from Western Rivers Conservancy. It was the tribe’s first property in 250 years.

The Esselens also are co-managing the Rana Creek Ranch, a 14,100-acre property in Carmel Valley that former Apple computer co-founder Mike Markkula sold this summer for $35 million to the Wildlands Conservancy, a San Bernardino group that plans to open it to the public.

The tribe will use the Pico Blanco wilderness and the other properties, for ceremonies, dances, gathering medicinal plants, and in some areas, prescribed fire using traditional practices, Nason said.

The Boy Scouts have been guarded about the sale. The Silicon Valley Monterey Bay Council’s CEO, Eric Tarbox, declined to be interviewed or answer questions about it.

His staff issued a written statement, which said that the Boy Scouts “have been faithful stewards of Camp Pico Blanco since 1948,” but “unfortunately, recent events, namely the Soberanes wildfire of 2016 and the subsequent winter of 2017, have left the entryway to the camp, Palo Colorado Road, inaccessible.”

Three years ago, the national Boy Scouts of America declared bankruptcy after facing a wave of sexual abuse lawsuits. A federal judge in Delaware approved a $2.46 billion agreement to settle 82,000 claims of scouts who said they were abused over decades. It was the largest sexual abuse settlement in U.S. history.

As part of that settlement, the scouts’ local councils were required to provide $500 million. Across the country, scouting chapters have been selling off property, including camps, to raise money.

Court records in the case show the Silicon Valley Monterey Bay Council had 321 abuse cases filed against it, and agreed to contribute $10 million to the overall national settlement — $7.6 million in cash and $2.4 million from a “property contribution.”

Asked if the Silicon Valley Monterey Bay Council is selling the Pico Blanco properties to help pay the debt for the sexual abuse lawsuit, Michael Wilson, the council’s chief operating officer, said in an email, “No, these funds are not being used for that purpose.”

In an interview last year with the Monterey Weekly, Peter Baird, the agent who listed the property, said the sale would cover some of the debt to the sexual abuse settlement fund. Wilson declined to answer questions about the court documents or Baird’s statement, and Baird did not return a call asking for clarification.

As for access to the property, Big Sur landowners now can pass through locked gates and use four-wheel drive vehicles to drive over upper Palo Colorado Road. But it will cost $17 million to repair the storm damage properly so it can be opened to the public, and the county only has $3 million, said Randall Ishii, Monterey County’s public works, facilities and parks director. Environmental studies are due out this month, and work could begin in 2025, he said, if funds can be found.

All three buyers are also still raising money to buy Camp Pico Blanco. But they are confident the deal will go through.

“It’s beautiful country,” said Nason. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”