A burger is sizzling on the kitchen grill at the Cuyama Buckhorn Resort in New Cuyama. This is now a modernized boutique hotel in a town of 562 residents, where 18-wheelers roll through on Highway 166, between Santa Maria and Bakersfield, in what’s known as the Hidden Valley Of Enchantment. But, when it was built, in 1952, this was a booming oil town.
"A middle hub out in the middle of nowhere really," explains General Manager Scott Augat of the 21-room resort, which has been reimagined by architect Jeff Vance, who has been visiting the remote area – where Ventura, Kern, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties converge, since he was a child.
Augat said the owners realized the importance of maintaining the "important character and bones" of the original motel, which became a "passion project" for them.
He said that once they fell in love with the community, "it became a lot more than that."
The kitchen serves locally sourced cuisine, which, Augat says, is part of the resort’s commitment to the community.
"Foodie paradise...but with the whole philosophy of sustainability and supporting our smaller businesses. There's someone that raises cattle up the street so we get a lot of our beef from them," he said, as well as sourcing seafood from the Santa Barbara coast and local farmers markets.
And although opening a hotel as COVID hit was challenging, the motel-style design enabled them to operate more safely.
"They definitely had to readjust their operations. But because these are individual rooms, you don't have to walk down a hallway, they still were able to rent rooms."
He said that also outside entertainment became an appeal, with movies screened against a big white wall on the property.
Cuyama takes its name from the Chumash word "kuyam:, which means “to rest” – and still today, that history lives on as it offers a place to relax and refresh, for those traveling between the interior and the coast.
