A businessman who enraged local residents by snapping up multiple properties in a small coastal town in California has hit back at claims he is just cashing in.
Jeff Hansen, 64, moved to Point Arena, a town of just 451 people, from Utah in 2014 after falling in love with the gorgeous scenery.
But over the years his property investments have led to fiery disputes with tenants, business partners and neighbors.
Yet, speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Hansen claimed ‘the place was circling the toilet’ before he began purchasing properties
‘I saw potential in the buildings and the old motels that I’m fixing up,’ he continued.
‘Half the town likes me. The other half hates my guts with a militant edge, you know? And they’re the noisy ones.’
Hansen further enraged some local residents with his appointment to the town’s council in December 2022, which gives him the power to vote on resolutions that could directly affect his real estate portfolio.
However, mayor Barbara Burkey assured residents two years ago he would recuse himself from any decisions over his properties, which he has pledged to do as well.
Meanwhile, city Manager Peggy Ducey said she is aware Hansen is a ‘controversial figure’ but claimed the town cannot infringe on his rights to buy property.
Jeff Hansen (pictured) has become one of the most prolific real estate investors in Point Arena
A drone photo that shows nearly all of Point Arena, a town of 451 people
In addition to running a motel, Hansen is also a landlord to several business and had managed a diner, owned by his son, for a few months.
However, Hansen was slammed by locals last week in a piece published by The San Francisco Chronicle.
The article claims he forced a business to shutter and featured accounts from a former business partner and a tenant who claims she was retaliated against.
Hansen told the DailyMail.com that through his LLCs – which are connected to close and distant relatives – he personally owns 12 addresses throughout the 1.4-square-mile town.
Six of those are residential properties, which comprise 11 units in total.
Two of his apartments are above the town’s defunct general store on Main Street and another three apartments are in a building on nearby Center Street.
The remaining four units are two duplexes on Mill Street.
‘Five years ago, I bought two duplexes and a five-plex, anticipating the need for employee housing,’ Hansen explained.
He said that since Point Arena is so small, it makes it a ‘difficult place to work and do business.’
Because of that, he said ‘it became evident’ that he would have to buy rental housing for employees and future employees any time it came up for sale.
This strategy, he believes, will make his businesses viable.
He said that two of his employees live in his apartments he currently owns, while the rest of his tenants do not work for him.
His two employees pay rent, though they don’t have to live in his apartments as condition of their employment, he said.
Pictured: All of the Point Arena properties owned by Hansen and his two children, a son and a daughter
Pictured: A street-level view of Main Street in Point Arena. The most crowded stretch of the road that has shops, restaurants, and a movie theater is less than a quarter mile long
His most prominent purchase was the old Seashell Inn on Main Street, which for years had been an eyesore that hosted rowdy parties late at night, according to local outlet the Ukiah Daily Journal.
In late 2014, Hansen bought the two lots on either side of Main Street where the two ‘derelict’ hotel buildings were. As part of that $1 million purchase, he also bought a lot that contained an abandoned gas station next door.
In 2020, he reopened the building on the west side of the street and renamed it the Wildflower Boutique Motel, complete with new solar panels, custom furnishings and floral accents.
He is still in the middle of renovating the building on the east side and will have a total of 40 lodging rooms when that is complete.
‘I just got a coastal development permit to do the parking lot across the street, which I waited two years for,’ he said. ‘The building rules out here on the coast are very draconian.’
Next door to the Wildflower Motel, he owns a building that has an izakaya Japanese restaurant on the ground floor and a manager’s quarter’s on the second floor.
He also owns two former meeting halls for fraternal organizations.
Pictured: The Wildflower Motel, which Hansen bought in 2014 and opened in 2020 to great acclaim
Pictured: An overhead view of Point Arena’s main street. The Wildflower Motel can be seen in the bottom left corner with solar panels on its roof
Two doors down from the Wildflower Motel, he owns a building that used to be run by the Ancient Order of Druids in America, a religious nonprofit founded in 1912.
Hansen currently leases it out to a fish company who he said prepares fish in the building’s commercial kitchen.
On Mill Street, he owns a still boarded-up building that was previously in the hands of the Odd Fellows, another fraternal brotherhood that was founded in 1819.
On top of his portfolio, his two adult children own properties in Point Arena too.
Hansen’s daughter bought a former marijuana dispensary on Main Street after it had been on the market for a year.
His son also owns two buildings on Main Street. One of them has three commercial tenants, including an art studio, an apothecary and a second-hand store.
The other building his son owns is two doors up and was the site of Amber’s Diner, a restaurant that closed down last year following a dispute between Hansen and a business partner.
Hansen downplayed his family’s influence in Point Arena by saying their purchases have happened gradually over the last 10 years, while also claiming that not many people wanted the properties he bought.
A former tenant at one of his Mill Street units, whom The Chronicle only identified as Olivia, said Hansen cut down a plum tree in her rental home’s yard in 2020.
He denied this, saying the plum tree is still on that property to this day.
A recent article in a local paper called Independent Coast Observer focused on The Chronicle’s reporting and actually included a picture of the plum tree.
Pictured: The plum tree that Olivia claimed Hansen cut down in 2020
Hansen denied or contradicted many of the anecdotes that were presented in The Chronicle’s piece (Pictured: The city limits of Point Arena)
Hansen explained that he never cut down the tree entirely. He said he trims the tree back from the building once a year to maintain his fire insurance.
‘At the end of the day, it’s a building owner’s right to maintain his landscaping how he sees fit,’ he said.
Olivia also claimed that Hansen retaliated against her for raising the objection about the plum tree by raising her rent twice, each time by 10 percent, the maximum yearly increase allowed by California.
Hansen provided lease documents to DailyMail.com that showed he did increase Olivia’s rent in 2019 by 10 percent to $1,045 per month. He increased it again by a little over 8 percent in 2020.
He said these rent hikes were introduced for all of his tenants and clarified that Olivia wasn’t singled out.
The documents also showed that Olivia was given a goodwill rent concession of $340 from September through December 2020, meaning she would have only been expected to pay the previous year’s rent of $1,045 a month.
Olivia did not sign the new lease and moved out by January 31, 2021, according to the documents.
In February 2024, Michael Schnekenburger slammed Hansen on Facebook for allegedly forcing Amber’s Diner to close down.
Hansen and Schnekenburger were business partners on the diner, but Hansen was the landlord as well. Hansen’s son is the owner of record on the building.
The diner opened in July 2023 and closed four months later.
The Point Arena lighthouse at sunset. It is one of the most sustaining tourist destinations in the tiny town of just 451 people
‘We closed because of Jeff,’ Schnekenburger wrote on Facebook. ‘Dictating hours, forcing certain conditions on us, bad decisions, and business practices. That was the entire reason.’
Hansen had a different version of events, claiming he shut down the restaurant because it was losing thousands of dollars per week.
He told DailyMail.com that he had ‘every right’ to discontinue a business that wasn’t profitable.
Hansen also revealed that his son’s girlfriend was in the process of opening a new restaurant in the space where Amber’s used to be. She just got approved for a liquor license, he said.
When asked if he wants to own more real estate in Point Arena even though he’s a city councilmember with input over the community’s development, Hansen said ‘it’s not against the law for me to own property.’
He added that he has only bought one building, the Odd Fellows Hall, since he’s been on the city council.
When asked about buying more Point Arena property in the future, Hansen kept the door open, saying that if someone offered him a building that made sense, he would ‘consider it.’
