A unique museum/micro-hotel overcomes dissent to get approval in Pacific Grove.

Jon Kramer loves all things rocks, gems and fossils, and is convinced he can build a successful business around his lifelong hobby in a mash-up between a geological museum, a small retail space and a mini-boutique hotel inside an empty old church in Pacific Grove just two blocks from the coast. The one-time geology-major-turned-businessman plans to include interactive geology exhibits inside each hotel room.

“It would be like spending a night in a museum,” Kramer says of what he has named Casa Museo, Spanish for “museum house.” “It’s really going to be unlike anything you’ve ever seen.”

Little did Kramer know back in July 2021 he would find himself between a rock and a hard place when it came to city officials who refused to even accept his project application, claiming that zoning did not allow for lodging units. Their reason made no sense to Kramer, who pointed out that the city’s own codes stated that California Coastal Commission rules, which allow lodging in the coastal zone, take precedence. Officials refused to budge, so Kramer filed a lawsuit in Monterey County Superior Court demanding the city accept his application.

The city lost the case and in January 2022, Judge Carrie Panetta signed a settlement order that required the city to accept the application with up to four lodging units, provided Kramer include four off-street parking spaces. The Pacific Grove City Council retained the right to approve, disapprove or modify the project.

The application went through two rounds of review at the city’s Architectural Review Board and then another two rounds with the Planning Commission. Some residents argued that parking would be an issue, along with traffic, since the project is situated around the block from what is slated to become a 225-room luxury hotel in the American Tin Cannery, currently under appeal at the Coastal Commission. On Jan. 12, the Planning Commission voted 6-0 in favor of Kramer’s project, after requiring off-site parking for employees and other conditions.

Kramer plans on renovating the timber-framed church into a museum space featuring fossils and other artifacts with a coastal theme and a small sales space in one corner. Some later additions in the back of the church will be demolished and replaced with the lodging units and a garage. Around the outside of the building, along Central and Dewey avenues, there will be a geological garden with boulders from various regions of the country. Kramer hopes to begin construction this summer. He estimates the project will take about two years to complete.