“Long Live Simoneau’s Bohemian Rendezvous!”
Author’s Backstory on “Inside Simoneau’s Restaurant – A Bohemian Rendezvous”
I had the honor of presenting a new treatment on Jules Simoneau, the jolly proprietor of the Bohemian Rendezvous in Monterey. It was Simoneau who became young Louis Stevenson’s “guardian angel” before he gained literary world fame as Robert Louis Stevenson. It was an especially eventful day because the presentation was part of the RLS Club of Monterey’s annual celebration of Stevenson’s Unbirthday Party.
I reveled as long time club member and professional actor/playwright Keith Decker got the unbirthday party started with a reading of Stevenson’s Deed of Gift. His Scottish brogue brought RLS’s whimsical, mock-legal document to life and brightened the day despite the gray, rainy weather during the November 15 celebration.
I’m a relatively new member of the RLS Club. I first began to take an interest in Simoneau a few years ago when Monica Hudson took me on a “Walk in the Footsteps of RLS” throughout Monterey. That walkabout sparked my interest in developing a better understanding of 1879 Monterey and convinced me to join the club.
Since then, I have enjoyed a number of meetings with club member Lindy Perez, who has graciously shared her wonderful research notebooks as well as her own interest in 19th Century Bohemian culture. Of note, there is a lot of Lindy in the backstory of this presentation of “Inside Simoneau’s Restaurant.” In fact, Lindy even suggested the program title!
Lindy also pointed out a significant omission from my presentation. As she later noted, “Jules Simoneau never owned the building he operated as a restaurant for seven years (1874-1881), but that old Mexican adobe was known by locals and visitors alike as the Simoneau Building until it was torn down in 1920…..and replaced by a gas station.”
It is truly ironic that a building he never owned would continued to be identified with him years after his death in 1908. I think a photographic time series of “The Simoneau Building” might yield interesting insight into the cultural change that unfolded between the early days of Simoneau’s Bohemian Rendezvous and latter-day Monterey with its new, centrally-located gas station built in the heady months following Armistice and the end of World War I.
I’m glad that Lindy raised this point. I always learn something new from her as well as other club members. Among those who have especially contributed to my understanding of 1879 Monterey, the year of Stevenson’s stay in “The Old Pacific Capital,” are: Terry Trotter, Ruth Anne Krotzer, Mimi Sheridan, Keith Decker, Roger Swearingen and Robert Fisher.
I’m interested in learning more about Jules Simoneau’s Bohemian Rendezvous. What did his bar look like? What kind of stove did he cook with? Where did he clean dishes, glassware, beer mugs and linens? And, what might Tavernier’s painting of a moonlight camping scene at Point Cypress have looked like in the Bohemian Rendezvous’s candlelit salle-à-manger?
I’m pleased that the RLS Club of Monterey has offered to make this flip book of my presentation available to the broader RLS Community. It offers new information about this remarkable place and remarkable period in Monterey’s history when a vagabond writer traveled 6,000 miles from Scotland to Monterey where he found “houses so old for a country so new” and a true friend in the Bohemian Jules Simoneau.
So, to borrow Bob Fisher’s words, “Long Live Simoneau’s Bohemian Rendezvous!”
John Sanders
The Robert Louis Stevenson Club of Monterey 