Big Sur Bakery’s owner and landlord prepare for court battle after fire ravages business.

The owner of the destroyed Big Sur Bakery is suing his landlord, alleging that his lease was wrongly terminated following a May fire.

Property owner Hillary Lipman called the lawsuit a “complete fabrication full of spurious allegations,” and he intends to file a countersuit.

On the afternoon of May 3, the oven in the Big Sur Bakery – which was closed due to the Highway 1 shutdown – caught fire, and the flames quickly spread throughout the building. The other businesses on the property – Big Sur Shell station, Mother Botanical, Loma Art Studio and Gallery, and the event space Loma Vista Gardens – were spared, although Lipman says the fire destroyed a nearby storage building, burned trees and an electrical meter serving the property and melted a waterline.

Bakery owner Michael Gilson filed the lawsuit on June 20 against Lipman and his son, Blaise, who manages Loma Vista Gardens. According to the suit, the lease, which was first signed in 2001 and has been updated multiple times over the years, states that a fire or other such destruction is not a cause for terminating the agreement.

The suit states that Gilson received word from Lipman on June 7 that the lease was terminated on May 3 “as a result of the destruction of the premises.”

The suit goes on to claim that the Lipmans have “consistently and intentionally taken steps to disrupt” the business in recent years, including removing a sign that was visible on Highway 1.

“I am not afraid of competing businesses, and I have a long record of supporting and welcoming all businesses that have opened in Big Sur over the decades,” Gilson says. “Unfortunately, however, my landlord, over the years, and much more so recently, has taken actions which are designed to try to shutter [Big Sur Bakery].”

Gilson adds that the support for the bakery following the fire has been “completely overwhelming,” and the plan is to rebuild and reopen it as soon as possible.

Lipman says the building will be rebuilt, but Big Sur Bakery will not be a part of it.

Each side is accusing the other of illegal activity on the property – Gilson’s suit states that Lipman has allowed for events on the property in violation of Monterey County code, while Blaise Lipman says Big Sur Bakery was operating with “unpermitted building additions” that were made without the property owners’ consent.

“This lawsuit is a transparent and feeble attempt to distract from Mike Gilson’s gross negligence and illegal activities that resulted in a devastating fire that destroyed our historic family property,” he says. “Before our family has had time to sift through the ashes of what he destroyed, he is filing lawsuits with frivolous and baseless accusations unrelated to the fire, in a last-ditch effort to preempt the substantive claims we have no choice but to pursue against him legally.”

A case management conference in court is scheduled for Oct. 22.

The restaurant and bakery occupied a historic building that previously served as a hospitality center in Big Sur.