The Monterey History and Art Association is transitioning the Stanton Center back to its roots.

Monterey County’s oldest nonprofit, the Monterey History and Art Association, took a detour in 2017 at the Stanton Center on Custom House Plaza in Monterey. Instead of featuring local history and art inside the building MHAA constructed on city land in 1992 – as was agreed in a lease with the city, with $1 annual rent – it became a museum focused on a collection of Salvador Dalí art owned by a wealthy Ukrainian investor and art collector.

The MHAA board saw the move as necessary since Monterey history and art wasn’t pulling in enough visitor donations to pay the bills. What it did bring was scrutiny by the Monterey County Assessor’s Office, which ruled that charging an entrance fee meant the nonprofit would have to pay full-price property taxes. (A contentious appeal resulted in a reduction in 2021.)

As it turns out, the Dalí art didn’t pull in enough visitors either, nor did a partnership with a production company that leased the Stanton Center’s theater for about a year to present professional magic shows. (The company left in August.) The Dalí art collection is now on its way out too, after nearly seven years, about the same amount of time the surrealist artist spent on the Monterey Peninsula in the 1940s.

Last fall, MHAA President Gary Spradlin polled members asking which direction the Stanton Center should take next. The answer was clear: Bring back local history and art. The organization is now rebranding the site as “Monterey History and Art at Stanton Center.” Spradlin got to work pulling Dalí art from galleries and replacing it with pieces by influential 20th-century artists, including Jo Mora, whose entire archive was sold last year to MHAA by the Jo Mora Trust Collection for an undisclosed amount. “It’s really good stuff,” Spradlin says.

“What we’re trying to do is get it back to the kind of museum it once was,” he adds. The plan is to include displays of artwork that MHAA has amassed since it was incorporated in 1931. In addition to the newly acquired Mora pieces, Spradlin and volunteers have brought in a display with artwork of mostly local scenes by Armin Hansen and Paul Whitman. In another gallery, MHAA is offering a rotating display of art by local contemporary artists.

The Dalí pieces are going into storage, with hopes of one day selling some when the market is better, Spradlin says. (The original owner, Dmitry Piterman, donated half of over 500 pieces of Dalí art to MHAA, promising to donate the remainder later.) In March the theater will begin showing plays by New Canon Theatre Co. as well as history lectures. On Jan. 19, MHAA is hosting a free 92nd birthday party inside Stanton Center.

In the meantime, MHAA is eager to negotiate its lease with the city. Currently they are required to maintain a public restroom at the rear of the building but the costs are difficult for the nonprofit to meet – toilet paper alone is $6,000 a year. Spradlin plans to ask Monterey City Council to remove the restroom requirement, among other things, to help Monterey History and Art at Stanton Center succeed.