Quick Take
The historic Bayview Hotel could be sold by this spring, following a year in which the historic Aptos Village building lingered on the market, much to the interest of developers and locals alike. The property is once again in escrow, and the seller’s real estate agent said he expects the potential buyer will commit to the purchase by the end of January.
The Bayview Hotel in Aptos is in escrow once again, following the failure of a previous sale in early 2025. If all goes as planned, the seller’s agent hopes to have a commitment from the potential buyers by the end of January, and hopes to be able to close a sale by spring.
Main Street Realtors’ Datta Khalsa, who is the agent for the property, said that moving forward with the sale will rely on whether the buyers can expand the 14-room, 10,000-square-foot hotel.
The buyers have “plans to not only renovate the existing hotel, but to turn the back portions of the property into a separate venture of some sort,” he told Lookout. “There would be additional buildings constructed.”
Khalsa declined to identify the potential buyers, but he said the group is local. He said some members of the group plan to operate the business and others would develop the property. The hotel is listed at $3.5 million, and Khalsa said the historic building will likely sell for just beneath that listing price.
Early last year, developer Joe Appenrodt, who played a key role in the development of Aptos Village, was poised to purchase the property, but decided against it due to the anticipated high cost of renovations and improvements that the hotel might need, including upgrades to stairs, kitchen equipment and other features to bring it into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The Bayview Hotel is a local legend of sorts as one of the oldest buildings in the county at nearly 150 years old. Current owner Cristina Locke and her late husband, Giovanni Guerisoli, purchased the hotel in 2002. Guerisoli opened and operated an Italian restaurant in the hotel named Ristorante Barolo that was featured on a 2012 episode of Food Network’s “Restaurant Impossible.” The property has not been a fully functioning hotel or restaurant since Guerisoli died in 2017.
The hotel has a long, rich history going back two centuries. The Parisian-style, late Victorian Italianate structure was built in 1878 by Joseph Arano of France, who was the original grantee of the Aptos Rancho Mexican land grant. It has been a California Historic Monument since 1974 and on the National Register of Historic Places since 1993.
Its long life has also prompted rumors that the hotel might be haunted, too. Aptos historian John Hibble previously told Lookout that reports and anecdotes of paranormal experiences date back to the late 1980s. The hotel is featured in local author and paranormal investigator Aubrey Graves’ book “The Santa Cruz Ghost Directory.”
If the potential buyers are up for the project, they could commit by the end of January, said Khalsa. “At that point, they have the ability to close within 60 days,” he said, which means the sale could close by late March.
Khalsa said even if the potential buyers end up pulling out like Appenrodt did last February, there is interest from other prospective buyers, and believes that he’ll be able to find a suitor: “It’s a romantic dream to own a hotel — and one with ghosts!”
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