Asilomar Conference Grounds

The Asilomar Conference Grounds is a special place where people meet to talk and share ideas. It was first built for the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA). You can find it on the western tip of the Monterey Peninsula in Pacific Grove, California, close to an area once called Moss Beach.

Between 1913 and 1929, a talented architect named Julia Morgan designed sixteen buildings there. Eleven of these buildings are still standing today. The land has a rich history, as it used to belong to the Rumsen Ohlone people.

Name

The conference center was first called "Guardamar." In 1913, Phoebe Hearst suggested a contest to pick a new name. A student from Stanford University named Helen Salisbury won by creating a name from Spanish words meaning "refuge" and "sea." This name, "Asilomar," stuck. Later, in 1956, the area became part of the California State Parks, and the nearby beach was renamed Asilomar State Beach.

History

The YWCA Pacific Coast conferences were first held at a hotel in Capitola, California, until 1911. Because more people were coming, they needed a permanent place. In 1912, Phoebe Hearst hosted a conference at her home in Pleasanton, California. Money from that event helped buy land for a new site. In 1912, the Pacific Improvement Company gave 30 acres of land to the YWCA.

In 1913, architect Julia Morgan began designing buildings for the new Asilomar campgrounds in the Arts & Crafts style. By August 1913, some buildings were ready to host girls for the first summer program. More buildings were added over the years, with the last one finished in 1928. In 1956, the state of California bought Asilomar and added new buildings. In 1987, it became a National Historic Landmark for its importance to women’s activities, the YWCA, and the history of the nearby city of Monterey, California.

Present Day

Today, the property is officially known as Asilomar State Beach and Conference Grounds and is operated by California State Parks. It mainly works as a conference center but also welcomes guests for social events like family reunions. The grounds are open to everyone.

From 1956 to 1994, different nonprofit groups helped manage the site with California State Parks. Later, Delaware North Companies ran the place from 1997 to 2007, and then Aramark took over in 2009 for 20 years.

The rooms keep their old-style charm without phones or TVs, but Wi-Fi is now available. In 2012, work started to make the site easier for everyone to use, following rules set by the Americans with Disabilities Act. This work went on until 2014, updating paths and building access.

Notable conferences

The Asilomar Conference Grounds has hosted many important meetings over the years. In 1972, it held an Experimental Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Conference. In 1975, it was the site of the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA. Other notable events include the first meeting of the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction in 1994, and the Asilomar International Conference on Climate Intervention Technologies in 2010. The grounds also hosted the West Coast Number Theory meetings from 1969 to 2012, the International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences in 2014, the Asilomar Conference on Beneficial AI in 2017, and the Natural Capital Project in 2025.

In popular culture

The Asilomar Conference Grounds appeared in the movie The Shift (2009) by Wayne Dyer. This movie was filmed at Asilomar State Beach.

In 1975, an important meeting about DNA was shown in the PBS documentary titled The Gene: An Intimate History.