several nights. They liked the area so much they decided to wait for spring before moving south. By then they found the area so favorable that they decided to stay put. They had four more children: William, Frank, Flora, and Adelaide. Michael built a small cabin of hand-split redwood north of the mouth of Sycamore Canyon. He filed for patents on his land in 1883 and 1889. The Pfeiffer home became well known among travelers along the coast, and when the number of guests grew, in 1908 the Pfeiffer Ranch Resort became the first formal lodging along the coast when they began charging guests. The location is now the site of the Big Sur Lodge. It competed with the Hotel Idlewild on the banks of the Little Sur River for customers. Michael's son John and his wife Florence Zulema built their own cabin on the north bank of the Big Sur River in 1884. In 1930, John Pfeiffer was offered $210,000 (or about $ today) for his land by a Los Angeles developer who intended to build a subdivision. Pfeiffer wanted to preserve the land he and his family had grown to love, and instead sold to the state of California in 1933. Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park is named after John Pfeiffer and his family. Several features in Big Sur are named for the descendants of the Pfeiffer family: Pfeiffer Beach, Pfeiffer Falls Trail, Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, and Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. Boy Scout camp In 1934, the Monterey Bay Area Council built a makeshift Camp Wing within the park, but it was abandoned after the 1937 summer camping season. The next year the Boy Scouts built Camp Esselen at another location within the park. This site was improved until 1945, when limitations of the site, closeness to public camping facilities, and jurisdictional conflicts between the Scouts and the state forced the council to request reimbursement from the state for $8,000 in improvements. The council continued to use the camp until 1953. In 1952, the Scouts began building Camp Pico Blanco, and when that camp was opened in 1954, Camp Esselen was finally closed. Overnight stays Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park has both a hotel (the Big Sur Lodge) and a campground within its boundaries. The campgrounds were closed in the winter of 2008–2009 due to the Basin Complex Fire. The campgrounds have coin-operated showers, bathrooms