Be an Innkeeper by the Sea With This Coastal California Victorian for $1.5M

A Fort Bragg, CA, property teeming with Victorian charm is ready for a new owner.

It’s “the oldest building in the city’s oldest neighborhood,” according to Tracy Wolfson, of Engel & Voelkers San Francisco, Mendocino Branch. She’s the listing agent for the inn, which was built in 1886 and is listed for $1,595,000.

Known as The Weller House Inn, the storied property is set on a half-acre lot and currently operates as a short-term rental, catering to group buyouts, weddings, and retreats. Rooms can also be booked individually, and the redwood ballroom can be reserved for events.

The space could also be turned back into a single-family home, or the next owner could continue to run it as an inn. The floor plan offers many options.

There are seven bedrooms in the main house and four in the four-story, former water tower next to the house. Each bedroom has its own bath.

An additional three rooms in the main house—one with an exterior entrance—could be converted into bedrooms.

The property offers amazing sight lines from the water tower’s balcony, a perfect perch for whale watching.

“That is the highest point in Fort Bragg,” Wolfson says. “The views are really nice.”

The sellers purchased the property in 2020 for $1,250,000, and now they’ve decided to let it go.

“The interior is in very good shape,” Wolfson says, noting that exterior paint touch-ups are needed. “Anytime you’re living close to the coast, you’re getting that salt-water influence.”

A colorful past

If only this inn’s walls could talk.

“It used to be a speakeasy,” Wolfson says, adding that church services were also once held in the ballroom.

Wolfson is marketing the coastal retreat to locals and buyers throughout California.

“There’s been a lot of people coming to the area,” she says. “We’ve seen an influx of people coming from inland because of the fires. And with remote access to their job, they can live anywhere.”

Located in Mendocino County, Fort Bragg is about 160 miles north of San Francisco. The inn is steps from Glass Beach, the famed Skunk Train, and downtown.

“It attracts a nature-oriented person,” Wolfson says. “Because we’re so far removed [and do not have a commercial airport], we’re not so high in our prices as Monterey and Santa Cruz.”

She suspects a buyer would want to continue renting out the inn.

“It’s definitely a viable business,” she says.

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