Julia, Katie and I took a short vacation last week and visited Monterey, California which included a day at the Monterey Aquarium. Katie is almost 4 years old now and had a great time. As we left the aquarium she was a Hammer Head shark… she said.
We didn’t want to stay at a big impersonal hotel and tried looking for rentals on airbnb.com first but found nothing in the area in our price range. Luckily Julia stumbled across a small hotel online called The Centella Inn, located in nearby Pacific Grove.
The Centrella Inn was built in 1889 and in addition to the main building they have five cottages which appear to have originally been neighboring homes that had been added to the hotel over the years. Luckily the homes have been well preserved and had many original features. Here’s what the bedroom looked like.
We stayed in cottage #1 which turned out to be a 10′ by 40′ shotgun house. You’ll notice another tiny house, cottage #2, that looks like a mirror of the house we stayed in, which was in fact is a nearly identical copy of cottage #1.
The house has three rooms. The main living space had a front door that opened onto a quiet side street and a side door that opened onto a narrow private garden. This private outdoor space was connected to the rest of the hotel via a larger shared courtyard which was dominated by a giant redwood tree. The other two rooms were a small bathroom featuring a claw foot tub and a bedroom. The bedroom also had a door that opened onto the private garden area.
We don’t vacation often and when we do it’s typically a short trip to a nearby location like the California coast. When we head back to the Monterey coast next time, this tiny house will definitely be on our list of potential places to stay.
I live just around the corner from the Centralla Inn. Glad you enjoyed your stay.
You’re right about the small cottages: they were originally separate houses. In fact, they’re some of the oldest houses in town. They were originally canvas tents put up by vacationers over the summer months, but over the years many campers/residents gradually boarded over the tents to make them permanent houses. In some cases you can still find the canvas inside the walls.
The Centrealla Inn itself (the main building) has always been an inn/boarding house, but gradually acquired some of the smaller homes that surround it. After my wife and I stayed in one of the cottages (perhaps yours?) we decided to move her permanently. Couldn’t be happier.
Thanks Jim! Love to hear the background info.
That neighborhood IS really wonderful, I can totally see why you moved there. Love all the small homes there too
Enjoyed the photos and info on this small shotgun type home. Pehaps I will be able to visit and stay at the property and get ideas for the small type home I hope to build sometime soon.