"In 1878, Jose Arano constructed a handsome 28-room hotel at Aptos Depot, where he moved his store and post office and added an elegant Victorian saloon.
The stately French mansarded hotel and formal gardens gave an air of dignity to the town. His New Orleans-bred taste for French culture led to installation of marble fireplaces from France and massive furniture from his native Spain. It's original name was the "Anchor House," but it was soon changed to Bayview Hotel.
In the mid-1890s, Arano traveled for several years, in part to collect a $1,000 debt. Succeeding, he returned to discover his wife had died in his absence in 1896, leaving the hotel in the hands of their children, Amelia and Ed.
In 1898, the post office moved across the street to the general store of James Leonard, with son Thomas Leonard the new postmaster. The Leonard building burned the same year and was replaced in 1899 with a new structure financed by Leonard's gold mine, which was located a half mile east of La Selva Beach. (This building will also receive a county landmark plaque on May 4).
As Arano became an invalid, he was cared for by daughter Amelia, who ran the hotel. As Aptos historian John Hibble relates, the hotel's fortunes diminished with the lumber industry. In 1915, Amelia converted the hotel into a boarding house, where Joseph resided until his death in 1928 at the age of 91. That year, the service wing in back of the hotel caught fire, and all local firemen could do was cut it loose from the main building and let it burn.
Amelia sold the Bayview in 1942 to hardware merchant Fred Toney and his wife, "Babe." They moved the hotel onto the formal gardens, and constructed their hardware store in its place. Toney converted the hotel's grocery store into a popular restaurant, and Babe had an antique and gift shop there. This inspired them to establish the Village Fair antiques cooperative in the 1960s, in a nearby apple-packing shed where Babe had once worked.
Fred Toney suffered health problems in the 1970s and leased the hotel to a series of people who restored and lovingly preserved the stately old building. Fred Toney and Babe were killed in a car accident in 1979. Their daughters kept the hotel until 1989 when it was sold to Bayview Partners, who now operate it as a bed-and-breakfast and restaurant." (
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