Sycamore Mineral Springs was discovered in 1886 when oil drillers hit geothermal water instead of oil at the present site of the resort. By the early 1900s a small bathhouse operated on the property; the modern resort built up around it through the 1980s and 1990s. Today the property covers more than 100 acres of oak woodland, hills, and meadows behind Avila Beach on the Central Coast.
The signature product is the hilltop tubs. Twenty-four private mineral-water tubs are spaced through the oak forest above the main resort, each fully private, each reservable by the half-hour or hour. The water is naturally heated to roughly 102 F by the geothermal source under the property. Tubs are open-air, mostly screened by trees, and designed for two to four people. Reservations sell out on weekends and around holidays.
Every guest room on the property also has its own private balcony or patio mineral-water tub. That means a stay at Sycamore is fundamentally different from a stay at Glenwood or Mount Princeton: there is no group soak, no public pool. The mineral water comes to your room. Many guests never use the hilltop tubs because the in-room version is already private.
The geographic positioning is what makes Sycamore work commercially. The Central Coast wedge between Big Sur, Pismo Beach, Hearst Castle, and Paso Robles wine country is one of the highest-grossing weekend travel corridors in California, and Sycamore is the only serious mineral resort directly inside it. The competition is mostly four-hour drives away in either direction.
