Portola Inn

Childhood Memories of the Petersons

 

by Asta Hamann

 

Minnie and Harry Peterson, first owners of the Peterson House on Portola Road, raised their three children there – Charles (Sonny), Paul (Bim) and Lois. All the children graduated from Atascadero High School but left home by the time I remember our family visits.

 

Occasionally during the 1950s my family came from Pasadena to Atascadero on vacation during the summer. The very dry heat joined the yellow grassy hills and found forgiveness when it whispered, vacation. After the five hour trip we welcomed the sight of the steep dirt driveway making its way up through the apricot trees. At the top of the hill we drove around to the back of the house. We always entered through the patio and kitchen nook where we were greeted by big hugs and a small fan.  In my child’s mind I remember the elegant living room being so long you could barely see the end of it. Imagine my shock as an adult, to discover it was a normal sized room. The three of us girls, Elsie, Gale and I wanted to go up into the tower in the worst way. We would quietly sit on the steps in the living room near the tower door hoping someone would make the connection and ask if we’d like to go up. After no one took the bait, we’d do a silent one-potato, two-potato to see who had to ask permission. The answer was always no and we never saw inside the tower until as adults, Tom O’Malley invited us to take a peek.

 

Tanta Minnie (tanta means aunt in German) would order Uncle Harry to go down to the basement under the living room and get ice cream out of the freezer. We were allowed to follow him down the cool concrete staircase but had to wait outside until he came out with the ice cream. We never saw more than a glimpse of the basement, yet another mysterious place. The four rental units in the back prevented our playing there for fear of disturbing the tenants. I remember literally tiptoeing past the rental units. We were allowed to help pick apricots and sometimes we were given a game to play in the house. Otherwise we were expected to sit quietly and listen to grown-up conversation.

 

Tanta Minnie kept active in community affairs including what is now the Atascadero Bible Church. As a successful businesswoman, she had the foresight to get income from the four rentals on the Portola property. She also placed pay-radios in motel rooms and sold her oil paintings in the sunken gardens.  I still have two of her floral paintings – yellow daisies in a pitcher and a yellow rose. Tanta Minnie purchased foreclosed properties in Baywood Park. It was also her idea to convert part of the main house into an apartment for later years while renting out the rest of the main house.  The sale of property over the years kept her financially solvent into her nineties. Uncle Harry was a haberdasher (men’s clothing salesman) with his store located on the ground floor of the old Atascadero Inn, now since burned down. Uncle Harry also sold insurance.

 

In 1961 Tanta Minnie introduced me to my husband, Duane Hamann, a neighbor on Portola Road.  She and Uncle Harry saw Duane out driving the tractor and stopped to ask if he’d bring their niece up from Santa Barbara where we both attended college. We came up one spring break when I enjoyed Atascadero in all its splendid springtime greenness for the first time. Thanks to Tanta Minnie’s introduction we have been married since 1962.

 

It is such a joy to see the Peterson House restored physically and socially as a bustling hub of community activities.

 

Thank you O’Malleys!