North Coast Restaurateur Don Dennen Dies

Lauren N. (Don) Dennen, who with his late wife converted an aged and abandoned farmhouse into one of California’s best known hostelries, is dead at 76.

The founder of Heritage House in Mendocino County’s picturesque town of Littleriver, died Thursday at Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco after suffering a stroke.

Eleanor Hayes, a family friend, said he had been planning to remarry and travel extensively.

Dennen and his late wife Hazel, who died last May, took over the 110-year-old Heritage House in 1949 and built it into one of the few first-class hostelries along the hundreds of miles of wild coastline north of San Francisco.

While Dennen, a fourth-generation Mendocino County resident, painted and repaired, she cooked meals for their first few guests.

Situated on California 1 with a spectacular ocean view, the $200-a-night hotel reflects the New England architecture popular along the North Coast. It was used as the set for the film, “Same Time, Next Year,” with Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn.

Today, reservations are often required a full year in advance and the hotel over the years has come to serve hundreds of aging married couples who first went there as newlyweds and return each year to celebrate their anniversaries.

Dennen’s daughter, Gay, is expected to continue operating Heritage House.