Sacramento, CA
Brookdale Lodge
Introduction
May 31,
2007
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
History
Information gathered by Roger Reynolds
Around 1840 Before lumber the Native Indians Deer and Grizzly Bears called the Howling Wilderness (San
Lorenzo Valley) home. (There are still Indians living in the valley today).
We have early records of a brief non-financially “gold rush” of 1855 that left the earliest known place of “Tin Can
Springs”. Which brought us to when Lumber was king in the mid 1800's and San Francisco builders were staking claim
to all the shipments they could lay their hands on. The burgeoning metropolis in The West held great promise and was
drawing in people from every comer of the world.
The Bay Area's tree-lined ridges were worth a potential fortune. Mills harvested the redwood forests, stretching
from Redwood City to Santa Cruz, at a frantic pace. Potholed dirt roads rib boned through the rough terrain that
offered little comfort to the horse-drawn wagons carrying lumber down to the waterways for shipment by barge.
One town that survived the difficult times was Brookdale. Brookdale started as a few scattered buildings and soon
became the social center for several sawmills. The town originally was called by a number of different names, including
Reed's Spur and Clear Creek.
Santa Cruz Bank President and Superior Court Judge John Logan, as it’s known today, plotted Brookdale. The
Judge, having a great deal of diverse interest including a goat farm, also is credited with creating the Loganberry (wild
Blackberry/Raspberry cross) that grows wild today.
In the 1890's, Logan purchased the property owned by the Grover Lumber mill who purchased the property from the
government in 1870 and renovated the mill's lodge into a hotel, dubbing it Hotel Minehaha. He opened the doors in
1900 as the Brookdale Hotel. Logan then purchased the Brookdale Town Site in 1902,
The Inn was a place where the dust covered and travel weary could stop and relax, water their horses, eat lunch and
grab a hot cup of coffee before continuing their journeys.
Logan built a bridge (which still exist today) over Brookdale's Clear Creek that guided guests to his small restaurant.
Beautiful Minihaha falls and the cool waters of clear creek, natural tourist attractions, drew regulars from San
Francisco, the peninsula, the south bay and Oakland during the hot summers.
Logan opened a campground. A railroad soon delivered vacationers from around the country. Santa Cruz had
become a big draw for easterners who would spend the winter in their Victorians that lined the popular ridges and flats.
Logan foresaw expansion and began selling lots around town to the U.S. Post Office making Brookdale an official
name when it was established in 1902 with the stores and dance pavilion that would support his town. He kept an 8-
acre lot for the hotel and the rest sold like hotcakes. The man who developed Loganberries had developed a
prosperous town.
Although the judge did a brisk business, the devout Christian had two rules, no drinking and no smoking, not even in his
private hotel rooms. If he found you doing so the stern judge would point you towards the road. He had a zero
tolerance rule and would even sniff guest’s drinks while they were dining to make sure no one had sneaked a tin of gin in
their jacket pocket.
In 1911 Logan, William T. Jeter and I.T. Bloom sold 1,200 acres of Brookdale land to John DuBois of Santa
Cruz, who planned to subdivide for vacation homes. That same year William M. Aydelotte bought the hotel, cottages,
store, warehouse, stables and corrals. All that remained of Logan's holdings was the Post Office and the electric
light and water company, which he continued to upgrade.
Changes in rail service signaled the end of pioneer days. Only four trains ran per day. Night freights were
discontinued. In 1917 the Brookdale station closed except for summer months.
After Dr. F.K. Camp purchased the site, the river jumped its banks and changed course in 1922, cutting a 70-foot
length of lapping river through the hotel grounds. Camp envisioned a dining hall straddling the fern-lined creek.
Embankments were needed to keep the creek in its place, but Camp felt they shouldn't detract from the stream bed's
natural appearance. The resulting terraces lined with granite boulders that allowed shafts of sun to nourish the
redwoods and ferns growing next to the indoor river suggested a marvelous setting for dining.
This vision was carried out by architect and landscaper Horace Cotton, whose design gained critical acclaim among
architects for so deftly integrating a rustic structure into the very fabric of the forest. And now is ranked with the likes
of the Yosemite's Ahwahnee Lodge as that rare example of serious "rustic style" architecture.
In a back wall above the rustic bridge over the falls was a round window, lit at night to look like moonlight through the
trees. Here a woman sang "Indian Love Call" opening day, on what became known as the Honeymoon Bridge.
Horseshoes from the old mill were welded together as lanterns. Even the stream was lit, with colored underwater
lights (a device perfected by architect Cotton), and people could watch trout swimming by as they dined. And the
kidney- shaped pool (lit from below) later had an underwater window behind the Mermaid Room bar.
The lodge's atmosphere inspired three songwriters to write "My Brookdale Hideaway," "A Place Known as
Brookdale," and "Beautiful Brookdale Lodge." Many years later, the famous Ink Spots played at the lodge.
Cotton also remodeled the 1870 lodge into a lobby and reading room. New entry doors went up, each four inches
thick, 51 inches wide and weighing 300 pounds. Their ornamental hinges were cut out of the mill's scrap boiler plate.
The river-rock fireplace had a 6-foot tall opening, and the chandeliers were rounds of polished burl hung with lit
clusters of pine cones.
A series of underground tunnels originally used for flood control (rediscovered in 1990) joined the lodge and a
building across the road. It is said that ladies of the evening would swim in the pool, giving gentlemen visitors a good
look at them before being requested (via the number on the back of their swimsuits) for the evening's entertainment.
By 1905, the lodge became California's second most visited resort. It was a beacon for the world's rich and famous.
The lodge was featured in Ripley's Believe it or Not because of its unique rustic character and often compared to
Yosemite's Ahwahnee Lodge.
Hollywood stars including Mae West, Marilyn Monroe, Joan Crawford, Shirley Temple Black (She had a summer
home her), Tyrone Power, Rita Hayward, Hedy Lamarr, Henry Ford and Howard Hughes were regulars. Politicians
such as president Herbert Hoover and Cordell Hull visited the Lodge and where pampered like kings.
Shortly before his death, Dr. Camp sold the property in 1945 to A. T. Cook and W. G. Smith. In 1951 it was again
sold to a consortium of San Francisco businessmen and then to Barney Marrow, who also owned the Brookdale Inn
across the highway.
It was in the '40's and '50's that the lodge entered its most intriguing period, becoming a home for gangsters and other
shady characters. Secret passageways and hidden rooms were installed throughout the lodge and rumors of buried
bodies under the floor began to circulate getting the name of Ghost Town. Also during this time. After a fire on
October 24, 1956 one of three major fires in the area that year. The fire destroyed the Brook Room and Peter
Pundt’s Saloon. When Morrow rebuilt the Brook Room in 1957 with a Butler building, it included the addition of a
grand dome once belonging to a church. He often referred to his lodge as a "Hansel and Gretel theme motel," that he
transformed into a mock French Tudor and a "Santa's Village Swiss" design. (Famous in Scotts Valley)
Under Morrow's direction, much of the campground was paved over as parking lot, and a motel wing was added.
The lodge changed hands again several more times until 1982. In January, the river rose and flooded the entire lodge
with a foot of mud. In November, the lodge's wedding chapel burned to the ground. The fire took most of the lodge's
photo archive with it, leaving very few images of the lodge and the raucous parties that took place in its more glamorous
years.
In 1984, the lodge closed until a San Francisco couple saw an opportunity in the dilapidated building.
Current owners are conducting a more sympathetic restoration of the lodge. In 1990, real estate investor Bill Gilbert
and his family purchased the lodge and surrounding eight acres, and have refurbishing 46 motel rooms, two cabins, the
Brook Room and the lounge, which are open for business.
"I've been involved with some commercial properties before," said Lee Ann Gilbert, co-owner, "but I've never had
something so emotional as the Brookdale lodge".
More than 100 years after it’s opening, the lodge continues to register guests. Despite the history of flooding and
fires, the river still runs through the Brook Room as it has for more than half a century.
Warm lights filtering through the lodge's windows are often a beacon for weary drivers making their way over the
winding mountain.
All Rights Reserved.
