Beloved SLO County store has stood for more than 150 years. What’s it like to run it?

Reinvention is part of the California mystique.

From the Gold Rush to the birth of Hollywood to the Dust Bowl migration, people have sought out the Golden State as a place to make a fresh start.

Often the first order of business is replacing what was there before.

However, there are exceptions.

Take Sebastian’s General Store, which recently reopened in Old San Simeon Village after four years of extensive renovations, including a new foundation. That state historical landmark has stuck around since the 19th century.

In a Telegram-Tribune story published on Jan. 4, 1992, Susan McDonald wrote about some of the people who helped keep the San Luis Obispo County institution alive.

Time and place made Sebastian’s

Time hasn’t exactly stood still at Sebastian’s General Store in San Simeon, but it has moved at a pace unknown to most of California.

Originally built in 1852 as a whaling station out on a wooded point above San Simeon Cove, the store was moved to its present location in 1878.

Fancy salad dressings and gourmet mustards may share the shelves these days with the pork and beans, but the store has kept its rustic charm over the years.

Big wood and glass front doors make a welcoming squeak and groan as customers push through them.

Inside there’s a pleasant aroma of spices and hot coffee. And the old place feels sturdy underfoot with its heavy timber floors, kept blacked throughout the years by liberal coats of a mixture of kerosene and motor oil.

The heads of several shiny-eyed bucks are mounted on the walls next to some ancient photographs of North Coast pioneers, and an original Coca-Cola clock keeps time behind the cash register.

The store’s upper shelves are crammed to the gills with whaling guns, harpoons, mining tools and some old milk cans — remnants of past enterprises in the area.

“Just a bunch of antique junk,” grins Bob Buddell, the store’s owner and the postmaster for the village of San Simeon.

Most of the time he can be found in the small post office at the back of the store, while his wife, Jacki, handles things at the grocery check-out counter up front.

The Buddells say it’s been 21 years this month since they bought the old store from Pete Sebastian. They live in a house next door with their three sons.

“It’s been a very confining business, but a great place to raise our kids,” says Jacki.

She hesitates for a second, and then adds, “This is definitely not the real world..”

You can say that again.

The Buddells’ store and home sit next to a pristine bay in the middle of the sprawling Hearst ranch. They’re surrounded by towering eucalyptus and pine trees and grassy meadows in a world that lies just below the famed Hearst Castle.

From October to March, monarch butterflies hang in fiery clumps from the eucalyptus next to the store and visiting sailing ships anchor nearby in the harbor all summer.

The place holds on to a feeling of isolation, even though many of the one million visitors who flock to the every year find their way across Highway 1 to the little old grocery.

The tourists come from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Africa and all over the United States, the Buddells say.

Some, as in William Randolph Hearst’s heyday, even come from Hollywood.

About a year ago, actress Daryl Hannah and singer Jackson Browne came in and bought some of Sebastian’s house brand pasta sauce, says Jacki. Then, Browne called back when he got home and ordered a case of the stuff. “That was pretty neat,’ she says.

When William Randolph Hearst Jr. and his family visit their nearby Arabian horse ranch several times a year, their cook orders steaks fresh vegetables and special foods from Sebastian’s.

Jacki describes the Hearsts as “great people to have as neighbors.”

“To them this is Grandpa’s ranch,” she says, and they use it just like that. No highfalutin stuff.”

When the Hearsts are at the ranch, they pick up their mail from one of the 100 little windowed post office boxes at the back of the store.

Business at the store is pretty slow during the winter time.

On a typical afternoon, local ranchers and Castle guides, with their mail tucked under their arms, drink coffee and chat with the friendly Buddells.

D.O.G. (pronounced Dee-oh-gee) their young Alaskan malamute, gets her share of head-pats as she wanders through the store.

San Simeon village was a lot more bustling back in the late 1870s when Leopold Frankl moved the store off the point, Jacki says. George Hearst had built a pier near the end of the point to handle the growing number of ships coming in and out, and there were two hotels and a livery stable next door to the store.

The general store changed hands in 1895 and again in 1904, and was finally bestowed its present-day name in 1914 when it was purchased by Manuel Sebastian. He retired in 1948 and sold the store to his son Pete.

Bob Buddell was just out of the Navy in 1970 when he moved his wife and 3-week son, Jason to Cambria. Bob’s dad, James Buddell, was superintendent and principal of Coast Union High School at the time, and he’s heard that Pete Sebastian was considering retiring and selling the store.

With his parents’ financial assistance, Bob Buddell bought the store the next January.

Besides Jason, now 21, the Buddells have two other sons, Jim, 19, and Adam 15.

They have no desire to take over the store when their parents retire.

For all the work and worry, Jacki says they have no plans for retiring soon.

“This is not a job, it’s our life.”