Guests paying out the wazoo for retreats at the Esalen Institute will have fewer complaints about rooms and food going forward, aspects of the spiritual center that have heretofore been secondary to majestic views of Big Sur and classes in Zen and meditation. Esalen, the historic 1962-founded institute structured on Aldous Huxley's Human Potential Movement, is completing a $20 million refresh, renewing itself — and its mission — to renew others.
As Gordon Wheeler, Esalen President and Interim CEO, wrote, "Through our Campus Renewal Project — the largest property development project in Esalen’s history — we are ensuring that Esalen will be well positioned to not only serve the next generation of personal seekers and cultural change-makers but also expand our impact in a world that faces increasing environmental, social, and spiritual challenges."
Though Esalen is a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, that doesn't mean it's free to visit: Weekend workshops there start at $1,750. "Rooms do need to be updated," one Yelper wrote last year, but her message was to "get over it." After all, conditions at Esalen, spare though they may have always been, have sufficed for such luminaries as psychologist Abraham Maslow, architect and designer Buckminster Fuller, photographer Ansel Adams, and novelists Ray Bradbury and Ken Kesey — all Esalen denizens.
Covering the renewal project, the Chronicle reports that the main lodge renovations are complete: That structure, built as an inn in 1939, now includes a second story with a large deck, a new mosaic, and an expanded bookstore space. The kitchen and dining area have been expanded and a new café and bar has been added. A new six-room guesthouse offers more expansive accommodations for guests, and staff housing has been increased and renovated — staff housing burned down in 2011, Esalen's website explains.
Architectural firm Arkin Tilt Architects is behind the redesign, which will be fully completed next year. In 2012, on the eve of its 50th anniversary, the New York Times mused on Esalen's future. Would it become a museum to its past intellectual and spiritual glory, times when teachers like Joan Baez, Bonnie Raitt, Ravi Shankar, Bob Dylan, and George Harrison graced the institute with their presence? Or might it lapse in its social mission, becoming a luxury resort?
The redesign might be interpreted as a signal of either, neither, or both, but it's provided an occasion for Esalen's leadership to confront those questions. As Ian-Michael Hébert, director of Esalen’s campus renewal project, told the Chronicle, "We’re making the shift from what was the human potential movement to the collective potential movement — what can we accomplish together.”
That echoes Wheeler's thinking in 2012: The Esalen CEO, fittingly a Gestalt psychologist, told the Times that, “We’ve always said we’re about personal and social transformation... If anything, we’ve stepped up the social. The world is more demanding now. The call of the world is more urgent. And we looked at each other and said we have to step it up.”
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