Tassajara Hot Springs, deep in California’s Ventana Wilderness, has long drawn people to its thermal waters despite difficult access. Esselen people used the springs for centuries before Spanish colonization, and Native people from other tribes also came for healing. In the late nineteenth century, after Charles W. and Mary E. Quilty bought the property, road building and resort development turned it into a remote spa destination, with a hotel, post office, and regular stage service. The stone hotel burned in 1949. Sold to the San Francisco Zen Center in 1966, the site has been home since 1967 to a Zen Buddhist monastery, preserving its layered history of Indigenous use, resort culture, and spiritual retreat.