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HISTORY ON THE HILL

PHOTOGRAPHY BY TIM TAPSCOTT

A few days before he graduated from Cal Poly in 2011, Tim Tapscott talked one of his photography friends into joining him in shooting the last scenes he would capture during his time living in San Luis Obispo. Grad school in Colorado would have to wait until the pair made a trip to the boarded-up building on the hill. He had been interested in the history of the place, fascinated by the rumors. The facility opened as an orphanage in the 1920’s, and eventually became a tuberculosis unit for the old general hospital, and finally ended as a juvenile detention facility called Sunny Acres. Rumors abound concerning what has been going on there since its official closure. Recently, Transitions Mental Health Association (TMHA) purchased the property and expects to renovate it for its fourth act: permanent housing for those struggling with mental illness. Although it expects the process to take between five and eight years, TMHA envisions 35 studio apartments for its clients. But, on that chilly “pitch black” night in early June, Tapscott and his friend lugged their equipment up the hill to set up for a long, 30-second exposure. “I really couldn’t see the building at all,” recalls Tapscott, “I was more guessing where it was.” At around 10 o’clock, Tapscott set up his camera on the tripod and tripped the shutter for the long exposure.

Although the young photographer customarily prepares extensively for a shoot, he admits that very little forethought was put into this one. And, with the exception of the sepia filter that was added in Photoshop, very little retouching was done after the fact. Describing the scene as “very eerie,” Tapscott remembers the sounds he heard coming from the building that night… “something banging around, faintly.” The image that you see here is his last known photograph during his time in San Luis Obispo.

SLO LIFE