About

Meet the Taylors. John and Garrett Taylor, father and son, are fifth and sixth-generation Cambria ranchers, still living on land purchased by the family in 1868.

The Taylors arrived in Cambria from Scotland in the 1860s and have long played a crucial role in the development of this beloved seaside town. Our patriarchs James, John, and Peter Taylor settled here, acquired land, and got to work farming and ranching. James had to stop in New York and enlist with the Union army to fight in the Civil War until its end. 

They bought 300 acres in 1868–now part of the “home ranch” for our branch of the family. Cambria's Presbyterian Church started at their house. Their acquisitions and enterprises spread from there. One of the John Taylors sold a ranch to the Cambria Development Company in the 1920s, launching the village we now know.

Cambria’s high school sits on former Taylor land, as does the popular beach-side park and most of Main Street! In the 1970s, when Cambria suffered a severe drought, the Taylors donated water to keep the town running.

Garrett and his wife Susannah live in one of the oldest houses in the area, a Sears kit house shipped by train to the San Luis Obispo train depot in the 1880s. It made quite a spectacle, as the family loaded it up and dragged it to Cambria. John lives down the road in a house built just a few years later. Garrett and Susannah are raising the seventh generation of Cambria Taylors and working HARD to keep the family’s wonderful heritage alive.