Seabright Beach used to be called Castle Beach because of the castle shaped bath house that was there between 1900 and 1967. The bath house cum castle was originally built by James Pilkington in 1899-1900. In 1918, Conrad Scholl and his son became managers and changed the name to the Scholl-Mar Castle. In the 1940’s, it was a restaurant called the Casa del Mar and then became an art gallery in the 1950s. It was demolished in 1967. As time has passed since the castle was around, the name Castle Beach has largely faded into history.
During most of its existence the castle was battered by winter storms. This changed with the building of the west jetty to create the Santa Cruz Harbor in the early 1960s. You can see the west jetty at the down-coast end of Seabright Beach. The wall of huge cement “tetrapods” with the lighthouse at its end is the west jetty.
In Santa Cruz, as along most of the California coast, waves from the northwest drive the flow of sediment and sand southward. This process is known as littoral drift. It can be thought of as a river of sand, just off-shore, moving south. Anytime you put a blockage, such as a jetty, in the river, you are going to block sand.The west jetty changed the sand balance of the beaches up- and down-coast of it. Previously, this beach was roughly “in balance” with respect to sand coming ashore each summer and being taken away each winter by storm waves. Once built, the west jetty trapped the sediment moving southward off shore. Now Seabright Beach is an an extremely wide sandy beach year-round.
The water edge in the circa 1920 photo above, is about where the line of people and fire pits are in the 2014 photo. If you look at the circa 1950s photo of the Scholl-Mar Castle, you can also see that the waves were much closer to the cliffs.
Sources Used
- Lighthouse Point: Illuminating Santa Cruz. Frank Perry. 2002 OtterB Books. Available at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History, Santa Cruz Surfing Museum, and Natural Bridges State Beach Visitor Center.
- Living With the Changing California Coast. Gary B. Griggs, Kiki Patsch, Lauret E. Savoy. University of California Press; 2005.
I have lived across the street from where the Castle was, 2nd house up since 1950, and my family has been on the 1st block of Mott since 1885 full-time. It was Pilkington’s Seabright Saltwater Bathhouse from 1899 on. (I have photos) In 1929 owners Louie & Conrad Scholl rebuilt the bathhouse into the Castle. It never looked like or was called Castle until Scholls rebuilt it into one, and it has been Seabright Beach since the 1800s. It was referred to as Castle Beach by locals etc., but always was officially Seabright Beach.Scholls still had the bathhouse, with water heated by winter driftwood. When Fred Russell bought it in the 40s, they made the Castle Smorgasbord buffet restaurant upstairs, and summer snack bar downstairs, next to the living quarters/apartment. When Dr. John Ritchey bought the Castle in 1964, it was made into the Castle Art Gallery upstairs, and still had the summer snack bar and apartment. I worked starting in summer of ’64 running the cash register, and taking orders in the snack bar at age 13. The only severe damage to the Castle was winter of ’64. and they replaced the east wall with wood, and it never looked the same. After a big party (I was there, and a guy passed out with a lit cigarette in another room) , and fire, it was condemned and torn down in May 1967. Mom took photos of that, and I have photos of all incarnations of the property. The bathhouse was structurally changed many times.
Larry – Fantastic informations and memories. Thank you so much for writing them down here. If you would be willing to share any of your photos we would love to update the post with them and some of the stories you shared. If so please e-mail me at julia@mobileranger.com. Thanks again.
Julia