A smile creases Erin Gafill’s sculpted chin as she considers the upcoming celebration: “It’s gonna be like the old days.”

As in The Old Days, when people came to escape the war, then its memories, when people came to be inspired, to escape, to create. And to party.

First there was dancing virtually every night, driven by records or visiting bands, and a passion for folk ranging from tango to African.

The community joined the out-of-towners. “They used to have barn parties,” Holly Fassett says. “They all rolled downhill to Nepenthe.”

And they really started coming after The Sandpipers immortalized the dance scene there. “There had always been folk dancing and it was a huge part of Nepenthe,” says Romney Steele, who grew up on the property. “But after the movie there was a burst of people who came to Big Sur.”

Monthly “sign parties” celebrating birthdays for each sign of the zodiac spawned a sub-legend. While Lolly or Holly churned out inspired and colorful cakes from a 6-inch cake recipe binder, suitably stoned Leos danced in tiger-striped suits or Scorpios boogied in their birthday versions.

While the sign parties were eventually discontinued – the Fassetts couldn’t cope with having to hire security to quell a surge of drugged and destructive youngsters – their brave Halloween benefit Bol Masque thunders on as the annual South Coast party without peer. Costumes draw deeply from the Sur’s stash of creativity and natural materials, and the mood reflects Sur’s penchant for freedom – in one corner, a Mona Lisa with her own frame might dance with Evel Knievel; nearby, a painted woman strikes a pose as a silvery nude statue. All-you-can-eat ambrosia burgers flow, the dancing dizzies into the next day and the event regularly clears $10,000 for the Big Sur Fire Brigade.

This Friday, the Chicano All Stars will send their riffs booming off the surrounding redwoods for three hours (3-6pm) and Paige Too will follow at 8pm with their brand of jazz. Fassett grandkids will lend appropriate folk at 6pm with inspired belly dancing; fire dancing will wheel around the pavilion at 10pm. In between, classic throwback items like crab Louis salads and Moscow mules (ginger beer and vodka) will kick in at special rates, and slices of the famously creative cakes that have long been a hallmark of Nepenthe kitchens will circulate.

“I can hardly wait,” says Fassett. “I can make any cake I want and not worry about whether people will buy them.”

Stan Russell, Big Sur chamber executive director and bandleader of the Stanimals, admits he’s both excited and concerned.

“It’s a party no one wants to miss,” he says. “But it might be a little too big. Bol Masques are $25 a head and bursting at the seams. Now they open the doors for free and throw live bands on the deck. How the hell are they gonna manage that? It’s gonna be controlled chaos.”

In other words, it’s gonna be like the old days.