A nude group therapy session in 1968 at Esalen, which was once a storied hippie hotel where nudity was the norm.
RALPH CRANE / THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION, VIA GETTY IMAGES

From the Nwew York Times:

”And so Silicon Valley has come to the Esalen Institute, a storied hippie hotel here on the Pacific coast south of Carmel, Calif. After storm damage in the spring and a skeleton crew in the summer, the institute was fully reopened in October with a new director and a new mission: It will be a home for technologists to reckon with what they have built.”

…

 

With the focus on the emotional life of executives, Esalen plans to close Gazebo, its preschool of 40 years.

“It was the soul of the institution of Esalen — all those little babies and what they’re going to be,” said Zoe Garcia, a guest and nearby resident, who has been going to Esalen for 30 years.

The closing is partly a sign of the region’s changing demographics. As more of Big Sur’s homes are bought by tech executives as second homes, there are not as many young children, so the class of 30 had dwindled to 15 before the floods shut it down.

“It’s incredibly sad,” said Cortlan Robertson, whose daughter attended Gazebo and who said the Big Sur community had offered to pay for the preschool to continue. “Ben is always saying it’s just child care. But it was so much more.”

Closing Gazebo was also a sign of a shifting culture and new rules.

For the rest of the article, see https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/04/technology/silicon-valley-esalen-institute.html

I will refrain from making editorial comments, other than to say this is a travesty. It isn’t just STRs that are changing our community, but 2nd homes, and institutional changes like this. I have heard about Ventana, but haven’t seen the changes, yet. Please feel free to share and comment.