The Continental Inn

Tomales, West Marin

Broker “Highest and Best Use” Ideas in BLUE

Second Story: Currently, the Inn has eight suites – all situated on the Inn’s second story – all legally permitted for guest use by the County.

Third Story & Elevator Addition: In 1988-89 during full-restoration, the third story was intended to be “finished” to serve as owners’ quarters. It remains unfinished with only drop-down stairway access. If the County were to permit additional guest suites, the third story could be finished with added guest accommodations. In that event, an EXTERIOR elevator affixed to the rear of the Inn would be important to add ease of access to both the second and third (top) floors. Today’s world requires ADA compliance and, with many travelers now also “baby-boomers,” an elevator, if prominently advertised on the Inn’s website, automatically would increase occupancy, making the addition well-worth the expense.

First Floor/Street Level: The Continental Inn is a “historic” hotel and, like all 19th century American hotels, offers retail and office space on its street floor. Hotel operators in the 19th century understood the value of extra income from received from rents.

In addition to the lobby at the hotel entrance, the street level offers two different County-permitted retail/office spaces, each with interior and exterior entries. Presently, only one is rented (month to month) – to Elkins Marine who conducts training seminars several times a year and, during its week-long trainings, fills the Inn’s suites with its trainees.

The other permitted main floor “retail/office” space opens onto Highway One and sports its own bath.

The street floor also includes separate innkeeper’s quarters, a large half bath for all office/retail tenants, trainees and staff, a double kitchen (not commercial) and a large laundry room that also holds hot water heater and hotel well equipment.

FURTHER BROKER IDEAS to ensure highest and best use of Street Floor Permitted “Retail/Office” Spaces

  • Small Breakfast & Lunch/Oyster Bar Café: One of the current County-permitted, two retail/office spaces also faces Scenic Highway 1 with separate exterior and interior access. The Inn currently offers no guest breakfast room so this space (presently used by the owner as a personal office) could be converted to a morning café that serves breakfast to guests as well as to visitors stopping in Tomales. Lunch could feature famous Tomales Bay oysters! (Current onsite kitchen would need to become County-approved as “Commercial.”)
  • Seminar/Training Center: The Elkins Marine training seminar idea could be expanded if networking were in place with UC/Berkeley andMarin’s many respected collegesand universities, such as Dominican. If the Inn were to become known to universities, corporations and government as a training center with accommodations for trainees, the Inn would be filled week-days, the most challenging occupancy period facing all innkeepers anywhere.

UC/Berkeley offers a huge online catalogue of endless opportunities to earn certificates – if Berkeley were to conduct certificate programs at the Inn, the Inn would be filled and Berkeley soon would learn from student enrollees how much more beneficial learning becomes when conducted at a close-by coastal community inn. Networking over time with government, university and corporate training executives would build strong year-round occupancy and establish the Inn as an important Northern California center of learning … with wonderful accommodations for enrollees! (The “retail/office” space currently leased by Elkins Marine is an ideal “classroom” that could be leased by trainers for specific events, instead of month tomonth.) And, like wedding venues, the Inn could end up with a “waiting list” for training events!

  • Destination Restaurant: Scenic Highway 1 is followed intently by “foodies” and food critics alike forever in search of the latest, fabulous “destination restaurant.” One of the currently permitted “office/retail” spaces could be converted to a “destination restaurant.” Over the years, many executive chefs have approached me searching for a space to open their own four-star restaurant. San Francisco and California’s entire coast is filled with these culinary entrepreneurs and the famed Culinary Institute of America in nearby St. Helena would have lists of graduates -- now celebrated chefs around the world -- who would jump at the chance to open their own restaurant in idyllic Tomales. (Networking with the Culinary Institute is just another example of an opportunity for the Inn to host culinary training seminars, filling the Inn with “foodies” from around the country and world!)
  • Bike Repair Shop: Serious cyclists who are regulars on Highway 1 – not just Amgen Tour of California participants -- have asked for a cycle repair shopto open in Tomales.
  • Yoga Facility: West Marin is perceived as a wellness destination so the Inn could lease space to a Yoga Instructor. (The Inn provides neither sauna nor yoga so the secondpermitted “retail/office” space could be converted for sauna therapy.)
  • Shoreline Unified School District, Tomales Elementary and High Schoolsall are located a block from the Inn, making teacher training and college-prep/secondary education ideas worth consideration.
  • Other Ideas: Since Tomales has unusually good – and rare -- double road access with the Tomales/Petaluma Road intersecting Highway 1 at Tomales, business delivery and shipping logistics to and from Tomales are far superior to other coastal communities. This double access opens up other “avenues” to endless business expansion plans.

Johanna Welty

BROKER BRE# 01307696

/ 925.708.4505