Every great dog-friendly hotel has a story, but the Beachcomber Hotel Group’s might be the most charming one on the Mendocino Coast. It starts with a leaning trailer, seven-dollar room rates, and a set of keys left on an empty counter. Fifty years later, siblings Bob Hunt and Pam Amante now run five oceanfront properties where dogs are treated like family—because at the Beachcomber, family is the whole point.
When the Hunts pulled into Fort Bragg on April 1, 1972, the previous owner was already in her car with the engine running. Sixteen-year-old Bob watched her hand his father the keys, say “good luck,” and drive off—leaving no room rates, no reservation book, no instructions of any kind.
Five minutes later, the first guest pulled in. When asked “how much for one bed?” their stepmother Bonnie didn’t miss a beat: “Seven dollars.” That seven dollars bought the family’s groceries that night. There was no cash in the till, and they couldn’t have made change if they’d tried.
The Beachcomber Motel was a 25-year-old, nine-unit motel that had sat on the market for three years without a single offer. Local realtors thought the Hunts were out of their minds for paying $54,000. Bob’s father figured he’d patch it up, flip it, and move on. Lucky for us, that’s not what happened.
The whole family worked the place hard from the beginning—booking rooms, cleaning rooms, hauling laundry. Every dollar that crossed the counter went back into the building. By 1976, nine rooms had become 22.
Bob took over the reins from his father and Bonnie in 1986. Ten years later to the day, his sister Pamela Amante came on as partner and general manager—the turning point that brought the family feeling back to what everyone still called “Dad’s Beachcomber.” Pam’s hands-on leadership shaped the place as much as anything that came before.
Three times across 24 years, neighbors leaned over the fence with the same question: “Hey Hunt, want to buy my property?” Their father said no twice. When the third neighbor asked in 1997, Bob said yes before hearing the price. By 1999, the Beachcomber had grown to 72 rooms and nearly 800 feet of oceanfront—the largest beachfront property on the North Coast.
The family kept growing. The Surf & Sand Lodge joined in 2011. The Beach House Inn followed in 2013. The Harbor Lite Lodge came into the fold in 2021 (it’s their only property that doesn’t allow dogs) and in 2025, they added Anchor Lodge inside Noyo Harbor to the collection along with the property’s The Wharf Restaurant. Today the Beachcomber Hotel Group runs more than 200 rooms across five distinct properties—each with its own character.
Bob and Pam still run it together. Bob’s daughters Morgan and Mallory grew up stripping rooms and pushing the laundry cart—the third generation of Beachcombers. And Bob hopes the next generation feels the heritage the family built and makes the next 50 years as special as the first.
