 Shatto purchased the island for $200,000 from the estate of James Lick at the height of a real estate boom in Southern California in 1887.Shatto created the settlement that would become Avalon, and can be credited with building the town's first hotel, the original Hotel Metropole, and pier.Though early maps labeled the town "Shatto", Shatto's sister-in-law Etta Whitney came up with the permanent name of "Avalon" in reference from a poem by Lord Tennyson called "Idylls of the King" about the legend of King Arthur (which features an island of the same name).