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195
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LH-SVHS-121
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Carbonero Creek Travel Park and Seagate Sign
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Trailer Parks
Carbonero Creek Travel Trailer Park
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Japanese Cony mini truck parked in front of sign to Carbonero Creek Travel Trailer Park and Seagate Technologies on Disc Drive.
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Bahr, Tom
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Scotts Valley Historical Society
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1996
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1990s
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Hotels Camps Etc.
Transportation
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88cb8c43e9bcd564050e525010666553
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Photograph Collection
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Photographs from the 1860's to the 2000's, documenting the history of Santa Cruz County.
See the <a href="https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/restrictions-on-use">About</a><a> sectionfor the library's reproduction policy and restrictions on use.</a>
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St. George Hotel Entrance
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Hotels and Boarding Houses
St. George Hotel
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1520 Pacific Avenue
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Barrett, Marilyn
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Friends of the Santa Cruz Public Libraries
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1987
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Santa Cruz (City)
1980s
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PHOTO
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Hotels Camps Etc.
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b72dcefe6581f1d29a4f4e8cb4d51e24
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Photograph Collection
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Photographs from the 1860's to the 2000's, documenting the history of Santa Cruz County.
See the <a href="https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/restrictions-on-use">About</a><a> sectionfor the library's reproduction policy and restrictions on use.</a>
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LH-scpl-501
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St. George Hotel
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Hotels and Boarding Houses
St. George Hotel
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1520 Pacific Avenue
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1989
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Santa Cruz (City)
1980s
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En
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PHOTO
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Hotels Camps Etc.
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https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/aa1465611aedbbabe44a9f362d9fbbba.pdf
fbf2b1c35d95edc764fb366a021cac91
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Text
The Spreckels Era in Rio Del Mar, 1872–1922
By Allen Collins
The ranch lands Claus Spreckels purchased in 1872 for about $81,000 comprised almost all of today's Rio Del Mar (ca.
1,150 acres), all of today's Seascape (ca. 500 acres), and nearly 1,000 acres north of today's Highway 1, extending up
Aptos Creek, Cathedral Drive, Trout Gulch and Valencia Creeks.
Aptos was a remote village in 1872. It was a two day trip from San Francisco, where the Spreckels maintained their
principal residence, a 4-story mansion at the corner of Van Ness Avenue and Washington Street. The preferred stagecoach route over the mountains from Los Gatos was the so-called "Santa Clara Turnpike", completed in 1858 - a wagon
road following today's Old San Jose road into Soquel. A secondary route was the so-called "Santa Cruz Turnpike", also
completed in 1858—it followed today's Glenwood Road into Santa Cruz. This road, incidentally, became the preferred
route when it was paved in 1915, and re- routed as Highway 17 in 1934.
Significantly, there were no connecting railroads into our Santa Cruz County in 1872. The Southern Pacific had
completed a road from Gilroy into Monterey the year before—it passed through the village of Pajaro, but did not cross
the river into our Santa Cruz County. Our first rail link to the "outside" was the Santa Cruz Railroad Company's line,
completed in 1876—it followed the same route as today's trackage through Aptos and Rio Del Mar, and terminated at
the Southern Pacific's Pajaro junction. Santa Cruz freight moving in either direction had to be reloaded in Pajaro, for the
Southern Pacific system was broad-gauge and the local system was narrow-gauge. This changed, however, when the
Southern Pacific purchased the local line in 1882, and broad-gauged it in 1883.
As an aside, the South Pacific Coast Railroad, a narrow-gauge from the San Francisco ferry terminal in Alameda to Santa
Cruz, over and though the mountains from Los Gatos, was completed in 1880. This system was purchased by Southern
Pacific in 1887, was broad-gauged after the earthquake in 1906, and ceased operations in 1940.
And then, 25-years later, the Ocean Shore Railroad, a broad-gauge system from San Francisco to Santa Cruz along the
coast was a dream that never quite came true. By 1906, it was operating over the 14 miles between Santa Cruz and
Swanton. By 1908, it was operating between San Francisco and Tunitas Glen. The 26 miles in between were never
completed; stage service was provided. Operations ceased in 1920. Much of today's Highway I north of Half Moon Bay is
on that old railroad bed, including the still troublesome "Devil's Slide" area.
Some words about Claus Spreckels and his family, before we discuss his many contributions to the Aptos/Rio Del Mar
area.
Claus Spreckels was born in 1828 and was raised in the little town of Lamstedt, in the independent Kingdom of Hanover.
The town exists today, about 30-miles west of Hamburg, Germany.
1
�All of Europe was in political turmoil while Claus was growing up, particularly the various independent "kingdoms"
throughout what we now know as Germany and Poland. It was the long, drawn-out so-called European revolution of the
1840's.
Claus ran away from it all. At age 17 he took a ship to New York, alone. He could speak no English. On exchange, he had
less than one U.S. dollar when he stepped onto the streets of the big city. He took a job in a grocery store for $4.00 per
month; the boss provided occasional meals and permitted him to sleep in the store. Five years later, in 1849, he could
speak English fluently and he understood the grocery business. It was then that he bought a grocery in Charleston, SC,
and went into business for himself.
Anna Christina Mangels, his childhood sweetheart, immigrated to New York in 1849 and found work as a maid. They
found each other, married in 1852, and had their first child (John D.) in 1853. A couple of years later, they sold their
Charleston store and bought a New York grocery. That didn't work out, so in 1856 they headed for California. It was by
ship to Panama, by mule across the Isthmus, and by ship to San Francisco. Claus was 28 and Anna was 26 at this time. In
San Francisco, it was another grocery store .. on lower Pine Street.
The S.F. store was not enough to keep Claus busy, so he started a brewery in 1857. In 1863, he sold his store for $50,000
and his brewery for $75,000 and organized the small Bay Area Sugar Refinery in San Francisco, and this business, like
those before, boomed. In 1866, he reorganized and built the California Sugar Refinery in San Francisco to produce 12
tons per day. By 1869, he was producing 60 tons per day. By 1871, 125 tons per day. In 1881, he completed a whole new
refinery in San Francisco, producing 900 tons per day! All of this was from sugar cane imported from Hawaii, the
Philippines, China, Java and the Sacramento River Delta (by barge). Traditionally, the brand-name for the Spreckels
product was "Sea Island Sugar"—remember?
Try to imagine two small farms outside the village of Lamstedt in the independent Kingdom of Hanover, in the mid1800s—a town of about 2,500 today 30-miles west of Hamburg, Germany. Claus and brother Peter Spreckels grew up on
Farm No. 1. Claus and sister Anna Christina Mangels grew up on Farm No. 2. The four kids went to school together. At
about the same time, in the Kingdom of Westphalen, further west, Agnes and (twin) sister Anna Lisette Grosse were
growing up an Farm No. 3.
In due time, Claus Spreckels married Anna Mangels (1852); Peter Spreckels married Anna Lisette Grosse (1861); and,
Claus Mangels married Agnes Grosse (1862). Agnes died in 1875 at age 31, and Claus remarried Emma L. Zweig in 1876,
when he was 44 and she was 36.
If that was not enough, the three men acting as a partnership, organized the Bay Sugar Refinery in 1863 and the
California Sugar Refinery in 1866, both headquartered in San Francisco. Considerable family fortunes eventually grew
from those beginnings.
Claus and Anna Spreckels had 13 children, but only 5 lived to maturity: John D., Adolph B., Claus A., Rudolph, and Emma.
In 1865, at age 37, Claus Spreckels spent 8 months in Germany, studying sugar beet farming and beet sugar refining
sciences and technologies not yet applied successfully in the United States. Unquestionably, the economic potential of
sugar from beets, to supplement and/or compete against sugar from cane, had much to do with his purchase of ranch
property in Aptos in 1872. The fact is, he planted sugar beets experimentally on the palisades of today's Rio Del Mar
within months after acquiring the land, and they did well. Thereupon, in 1873, he induced mid- county farmers to grow
sugar beets (by guaranteeing to buy their crops), and built a small refinery in today's Capitola, about where the
firehouse now stands—it was the California Sugar Beet Co. That little plant operated from 1874 to 1879, producing 3.5
tons per day of finished product during the season. Shipping was out of Soquel Landing (today's Capitola Wharf), and
sugar beets soon became an important mid-county crop.
2
�It didn't take Claus Spreckels long to realize that the fertile bottom-lands of the vast Pajaro and Salinas valleys were
better suited for sugar beet production than the limited bench-lands of our mid-county. Accordingly, he formed the
Western Beet Sugar Co. in 1888, and built an enormous refinery in Watsonville on land donated by Charles Ford; 50 tons
per day to start, 700 tons per day in 1892, 1,000 tons per day in 1895. This plant operated for 10 years, until it was
superseded by an even larger refinery near Salinas—the town that became Spreckels. In 1898 the new plant was
producing 3,000-tons per day! Shipping to/from the Watsonville and Salinas plants was mostly by a private Spreckelsowned narrow-gauge railroad system to/from the docks at Moss Landing.
One could argue that the beet sugar industry in the United States was born on the experimental farms of Claus Spreckels
120 years ago, right here in today's Rio Del Mar.
Almost sadly, the Spreckels' Pajaro Valley Consolidated Railroad became obsolete when good roads and dependable
trucks came along; the whole system was sold to the Southern Pacific in 1929 for "land value". And then, on July 31,
1982, the 94 year old Spreckels Sugar Refinery in the town of Spreckels was closed permanently, the victim of "progress"
in the chemistry of sweetening and the technology of farming and refining.
A man named Frederick Augusta Hihn (pronounced "heen", another German immigrant) had been a prominent
entrepreneur in our country for 20 years before Claus Spreckels arrived. Amongst many other things, Hihn had acquired
all of the (undeveloped) land comprising today's Capitola, vast timber resources in the Valencia Creek watershed, and
strategic parcels of land in and near Aptos Village. Understandably, when (in 1866) the Southern Pacific announced its
plans to build a railroad from Gilroy to Monterey, Hihn started promoting a connecting line into Santa Cruz County. The
road to Monterey was completed in 1871. Within weeks after Claus Spreckels purchased his Aptos Ranch in 1872, he
joined Hihn in promoting (financially and otherwise) a connecting line into Santa Cruz County—it would pass through his
property, as well as Hihn's.
Besides the obvious freight advantages, these men saw the economic potential of tourism in mid-county when travel
time to the cool coast from the hot valleys and congested Bay Area cities would be reduced from two days to a matter of
hours. Claus Spreckels started building an enormous semi-private resort hotel complex in today's Rio Del Mar "flats"—
the "Aptos Hotel"—it opened for business in June, 1875, 11 months before the first through train passed by. Fred Hihn
started developing Soquel landing (Camp Capitola) at about the same time, and in 1880 he built a massive logginglumber camp 3-4 miles up Valencia Creek, complete with a sawmill and a connecting narrow-gauge railroad into Aptos
Village.
The main building of Spreckels' "Aptos Hotel" was located near Aptos Creek, on the rise between today's Spreckels and
Moosehead Drives, on today's Claus Court. It was huge (170-ft by 130-ft in plan view, 3 stories), and as elegant as it
could be in those times: acetylene gas lights in every room, a bathroom on every floor, an elevator (reportedly "the first,
south of San Francisco"), enormous high ceiling lobbies and dining rooms beautifully furnished, great verandas with
spectacular views across Aptos Creek Lagoon to the beach and bay, manicured landscaping, etc. Across the street
(today's Spreckels Drive) was a recreational club, complete with a "game" room, a bowling alley, a bar room, and a
convertible dance-hall. Nearby was a gas-lighted pedestrian bridge over the "moat" to "Lover 's Retreat", an island
(literally) in Aptos Creek, on which was an outdoor dance pavilion under a natural stand of live oaks. "Lover's Retreat" is
known today as Treasure Island, although it is no longer an island. On a shelf overlooking the hotel (today's Wixon Drive)
were nine "honeymoon cottages", tastefully appointed, with sweeping views. Down the road (today's Treasure Island
Dr.) was a vast livery stable and equestrian center for the convenience of guests. A private residence for the manager
was on today's Bay View Court. The first manager was B.F. Bauer, formerly the California State Treasurer. The second
manager was John Mangels, a nephew of Anna Spreckels. He had come from Germany and married Emmeline Corcoran,
a daughter of James and Mary (Bowen) Corcoran, whose farm surrounded Corcoran Lagoon in Live Oak.
Interestingly, along Spreckels Drive today in the area of Claus Court, there is a distinctive grove of rugged old Cedar-ofLebanon trees. These were planted as an attraction on the grounds of the Aptos Hotel in the 1870's.
3
�The Santa Cruz Sentinel (6-12-1875) described the Aptos Hotel compound as the "Newport of the Pacific", comparing it
to Newport, Rhode Island. It was grand and glorious, to be sure, but it failed financially for a number of reasons. Aptos
Village became a rough-and-tumble, booming industrial center when the railroad came in to support massive logging
and sawmilling operations in the Aptos and Valencia Creek watersheds .. it became unattractive as a resort community.
The competition for tourism along the Central Coast intensified, particularly after the more direct railroad from Los
Gatos over and through the mountains was commissioned in 1880. As an attraction, the Aptos Hotel was crowded out
by Southern Pacific's fabulous Del Monte Hotel (1881), Camp Capitola the "tent city" (1879), the massive Capitola Hotel
(1883), the long-famous Sea Beach Hotel at the Santa Cruz beachfront (1886), and others.
The Aptos Hotel was dismantled very carefully in 1896 to avoid vandalism and to salvage the lumber (particularly the
massive hand-hewn redwood supporting timbers) which was to be used in constructing the huge beet sugar refinery
complex near Salinas; the town of Spreckels. The nine "honeymoon" cottages at the Aptos Hotel were moved to
Spreckels, to become employee residences.
The Spreckels family completed an enormous 2-story ranch home for themselves in the 1870s. From a knoll, it faced the
Coast Road (Soquel Drive) diagonally across today's freeway from the Arco Service Station in Rio Del Mar. With its
columned verandas all around the first floor and open porches all around the second floor, it was a landmark for 50years. It burned to the ground in 1929—two lovely old magnolia trees out front and the concrete foundations are all
that remain to mark the spot. The ranch buildings (barns, stables, maintenance shops, equipment sheds, etc.) and
corrals were located where today's Rio Del Mar interchange extends north from the freeway, in the general area of
today's Redwood Village and Pacific Telephone's regional center.
The view from the Spreckels' home was across the Coast Road (Soquel Drive) to Valencia Lagoon and the oak-studded
ridge comprising the north section of today's Rio Del Mar. That lagoon, incidentally, was a sizeable body of water before
the freeway cut through it in 1948—what is left today is the fenced-off breeding ground for our rare, near-extinct longtoed salamanders. The Spreckels built a 12-ft high wooden fence around 170-acres of that oak-studded ridge to create a
park, which they stocked with deer and elk—a private hunting preserve. That fence ran along today's Bonita Drive on
the north side of the ridge, and today's Monterey Drive on the south side of the ridge. It zigzagged across the ridge
about opposite today's Golf Lodge. Valencia Lagoon was the "water hole" for the deer and the elk. It was from this game
reserve that the Deer Park Tavern and Shopping Center were named.
Interestingly, the Spreckels clan built four architecturally similar homes between 1873 and 1888. The first was for Claus
and Anna (Mangels) Spreckels, as described above. The second was for John and Emmeline (Corcoran) Mangels on Eay
View Court in Rio Del Mar (he was a nephew of Claus and Agnes (Grosse) Mangels; she was a daughter of James
Corcoran, for whom Corcoran Lagoon in Live Oak was named)—it was smaller, and was torn down by the Rio Del Mar
developers in 1925. The third was for Claus and Anna (Mangels) Spreckels in the Punahou District of Honolulu—it was
almost identical to the first; it was partially dismantled and moved in 1915, and burned in 1954. The fourth was for Claus
and Anna (Zweig) Mangels in 1888 (he was brother-in-law and business partner of Claus Spreckels; a second marriage for
him) a mile up Aptos Creek from the village; it was almost identical to the first and third. The "Mangels' House" is a well
preserved historical monument; a popular bed-and-breakfast operation today.
A gentleman named Peter Larsen, a Danish immigrant, was the resident ranch and project manager for Spreckels from
the beginning, in 1872. The Larsen's home (provided by the Spreckels) was across the Coast Road (Soquel Drive) from
the barn yards; it backed-up to today's Arco Service Station in Rio Del Mar and stood in the middle of today's freeway.
The Larsens raised five children in that home—daughter Norma (Mrs. Roy Day—Day Valley fame), a widow, was living
with a niece (Mrs. Frank B. Lewis) in Rio in 1982. That home, incidentally, was acquired by George Carroll Humes (Humes
Avenue and Humes Court in Rio) in 1924. His sister, Harriett Humes Sweet converted the downstairs to the Deer Park
Tea Room, which became the social center of the community and was the forerunner of the now famous Deer Park
Tavern, before and after the freeway in 1948.
4
�As an aside, Peter Larsen bought a 100-acre spread from Jose and Augustia (Castro) Arano (of Bay View Hotel fame) for
$3,000 in 1890; it was for his retirement. That parcel faced the Coast Road (Soquel Dr.) across from today's Rancho Del
Mar Shopping Center. It ran north to beyond today's Aptos Library, and back as far as Aptos Creek; it had been giftdeeded to Augustia by her parents in 1866. The Larsen's retirement home was built exactly where the Chevron Service
Station is today.
Jose Arano never got to the bank with that $3,000 in 1890. He ran away, abandoning his family and hotel business. He
was found 10-years later, living as a hermit in Ventura, and was returned to Aptos. He died in the Bay View Hotel in
1928; age 91.
Aptos (Rio Del Mar) was once a seaport, believe it or not. In 1850 Rafael Castro built a 500-ft wharf near the mouth of
Aptos Creek—he shipped hides, cattle, grain and flour (from his Cascade Grist Mill, which stood on today's Creek Drive).
The wharf was extended to 900-ft in 1867 to ship cord-wood, an important industrial fuel in those days. And then, Claus
Spreckels restructured it and extended it to 1,000-ft in 1880, to accommodate his own large ships (the Oceanic
Steamship Company) hauling sugar cane from Hawaii to his San Francisco refinery, and redwood lumber as back-haul
from Aptos to Hawaii. In this connection, Spreckels ran a narrow-gauge railroad spur from the lumber yards in Aptos
Village to his wharf. A major sea-storm in 1889 wrecked the wharf structure, and it was never rebuilt—the broken pilings
can be seen today on occasion at low tide, as can pieces of steel rail, sticking out of the sand.
Claus Spreckels died of pneumonia in his San Francisco mansion the day after Christmas, 1908—he was 80. His wife
(Anna Christina) died in that mansion February 15, 1910; she too was 80.
The main-line businesses and properties went to their sons John and Rudolph Spreckels before the death of their father.
For this reason, they were specifically excluded as beneficiaries in the Will of Claus Spreckels. The personal property,
including the Aptos Ranch, reverted to the San Christina Investment Co. which was managed by and for the widow, sons
Claus A. and Rudolph, and daughter Emma C. (Spreckels) Ferris-Hutton.
The San Christina Investment Co. continued to operate the Aptos Ranch almost dutifully throughout WW-I, but
permitted the facilities to deteriorate, sadly. Finally, in July, 1922, it sold out completely to Fred A. and (wife) Phoebe F.
Somers, investors/developers from Pomona, CA; some 2,390-acres, including improvements, for $200,000—$92 per
acre.
Sources
This article is an excerpt from Rio Del Mar: a Sedate Residential Community, the Depth of its Character, 225
Years of Local History, by Allen Collins, published by the author, May 1995.
Copyright 1995 Allen Collins. Reproduced with the permission of Hester Collins.
The content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history
information. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a
variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,
please contact the Webmaster.
5
�
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Title
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The Spreckels era in Rio Del Mar, 1872-1922
Identifier
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AR-028
Source
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This article is an excerpt from Rio Del Mar: a Sedate Residential Community, the Depth of its Character, 225 Years of Local History, by Allen Collins, published by the author, May 1995.
Rights
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Copyright 1995 Allen Collins. Reproduced with the permission of Hester Collins.
Subject
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Rio Del Mar
Aptos
Spreckels, Claus
Aptos Hotel
Hotels and Boarding Houses
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Collins, Allen
Publisher
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Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Date
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05-1995
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Text
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ARTICLE
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Aptos
Rio Del Mar
Biography
Buildings
Business
Hotels Camps Etc.
-
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/1429c2773912d95821adca382f3aa566.pdf
a61a253445f9305ba034bb4260b84cc3
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Text
The Spirit of Aptos:
116-Year-Old Hotel to Become Landmark
By Ross Eric Gibson
The ghosts of the 116-year-old Aptos Bayview Hotel have been good hosts, only said to move things around on occasion.
But after May 4, [1994,] they may rest easier when a longstanding oversight is corrected.
This is not an exorcism, but an awards ceremony, where the Bayview will receive a blue plaque recognizing it as a Santa
Cruz County landmark. It is overdue for the county's oldest operating hotel, which has been a State Historic Monument
since 1974 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1993.
From their gentle behavior, the identity of these unknown ghosts could be Jose Arano, who built the hotel, or his wife,
Augustia Castro, whose histories take us back to the very origins of Aptos.
Augustia's grandfather was a 1798 Branciforte settler, Joaquin Castro, and her father, Rafael, received Rancho Aptos in
1833 as the county's first Spanish land grant. Rafael Castro's adobe stood where the railroad bridge crosses the freeway
southwest of today's village.
Jose Arano was a cultured Basque forty-niner. He was raised in New Orleans and spoke four languages. Around 1850, on
a site purchased from Rafael Castro, Arano built a grocery store that still stands at Wharf Road and Soquel Drive. Wharf
Road was the original main street, connecting the lumber mills to the shipping wharf. In 1851, Jose became the first
postmaster of Aptos, with the office at his store.
When lumberman F.A. Hihn couldn't entice Southern Pacific to extend its tracks into the county, Hihn built his own
Santa Cruz-to-Watsonville railroad. In 1875, this allowed Hihn and lumberman Claus Spreckels to loop the coastal railway
inland at Aptos to reach their remote landholdings. Up until that time, the site of today's Aptos Village was isolated and
largely inaccessible.
Jose Arano, who by this time was known as Joseph, intended his store to mark the heart of Aptos but was now bypassed
by the railroad. In 1878, he constructed a handsome 28-room hotel at Aptos Depot, where he moved his store and post
office and added an elegant Victorian saloon.
The stately French mansarded hotel and formal gardens gave an air of dignity to the town. His New Orleans-bred taste
for French culture led to installation of marble fireplaces from France and massive furniture from his native Spain. Its
original name was the "Anchor House," but it was soon changed to Bayview Hotel.
In the mid-1890s, Arano traveled for several years, in part to collect a $1,000 debt. Succeeding, he returned to discover
his wife had died in his absence in 1896, leaving the hotel in the hands of their children, Amelia and Ed.
1
�In 1898, the post office moved across the street to the general store of James Leonard, with son Thomas Leonard the
new postmaster. The Leonard building burned the same year and was replaced in 1899 with a new structure financed by
Leonard's gold mine, which was located a half mile east of La Selva Beach. (This building will also receive a county
landmark plaque on May 4.)
As Arano became an invalid, he was cared for by daughter Amelia, who ran the hotel. As Aptos historian John Hibble
relates, the hotel's fortunes diminished with the lumber industry. In 1915, Amelia converted the hotel into a boarding
house, where Joseph resided until his death in 1928 at the age of 91. That year, the service wing in back of the hotel
caught fire, and all local firemen could do was cut it loose from the main building and let it burn.
Amelia sold the Bayview in 1942 to hardware merchant Fred Toney and his wife, "Babe." They moved the hotel onto the
formal gardens, and constructed their hardware store in its place. Toney converted the hotel's grocery store into a
popular restaurant, and Babe had an antique and gift shop there. This inspired them to establish the Village Fair
antiques cooperative in the 1960s, in a nearby apple-packing shed where Babe had once worked.
Fred Toney suffered health problems in the 1970s and leased the hotel to a series of people who restored and lovingly
preserved the stately old building. Fred Toney and Babe were killed in a car accident in 1979. Their daughters kept the
hotel until 1989 when it was sold to Bayview Partners, who now operate it as a bed-and-breakfast and restaurant.
Whoever the gentle ghosts are that still reside at the Bayview Hotel, their spirit and legacy will be honored by the
County Landmark award, in gratitude to all those who keep their precious memory alive.
Sources
This article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, April 26, 1994, p.1B. Copyright 1994 Ross Eric
Gibson. Reprinted by permission of Ross Eric Gibson.
The content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history
information. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a
variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,
please contact the Webmaster.
2
�
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Santa Cruz History Articles
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Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books.
Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.
It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
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The spirit of Aptos: 116-year-old hotel to become landmark
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AR-038
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This article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, April 26, 1994, p.1B.
Rights
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Copyright 1994 Ross Eric Gibson. Reprinted by permission of Ross Eric Gibson.
Subject
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Bayview Hotel
Hotels and Boarding Houses
Arano, Jose
Creator
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Gibson, Ross Eric
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Santa Cruz Public Libraries
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04-26-1994
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Text
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En
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ARTICLE
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Aptos
Hotels Camps Etc.
-
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/e7821fbae485daabc7eda0412458243b.pdf
1d6cb59fae9f81437a6e4fd57e57cfa5
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Text
Santa Cruz has a Long History of Convention Business
By Ross Eric Gibson
With studies under way to possibly reintroduce the convention industry to Santa Cruz, it might be well to recall its long
history here. Santa Cruz was once the most popular convention destination in Northern California, after San Francisco.
The city of Santa Cruz began as a major shipping port for raw materials and agricultural products. Then, in 1862, the Bay
Association held its convention in Santa Cruz to escape the hysteria of Civil War mobilization in San Francisco.
The association returned with such glowing reports of scenic Santa Cruz that other conventions made this their
destination. For the first time, the tourist potential of Santa Cruz was recognized, and by the end of the Civil War, the
first bathhouse on the West Coast had been constructed on the Santa Cruz waterfront.
The first luxury hotel in Santa Cruz was the Pacific Ocean House, built in 1865. Today's PG&E Building has some of the
original Ocean House structure. It grew to contain its own theater, ballroom, banquet hall, roller skating rink, bar, billiard
hall, bathhouse, tennis courts and croquet grounds.
In those days the avenue was called Willow Street. But in 1866, the name was changed to Pacific Avenue so the new
influx of visitors would know which road led to the ocean.
Coming to Santa Cruz was a day's journey over the mountains from Los Gatos on dusty, precipitous trails. That was
reduced to a couple of hours when the railroad was completed in 1880.
But local merchants complained that many train tourists who came to see the redwoods then passed through Santa Cruz
to stay at the Monterey Peninsula's quality resorts of Del Monte and Pacific Grove.
To appeal to the tourist market, the downtown replaced its boom-town utilitarian structures with quality commercial
architecture of historic detail. The local answer to the grand Del Monte Hotel was the 1890 Queen Anne-style Sea Beach
Hotel on Beach Hill. Its enormous ballroom took up almost the entire ground floor, suitable for conventions, events and
exhibitions of almost any size.
The 1895 St. George Hotel did not stint on its quality of design and was praised by William Randolph Hearst for its
elegance and service.
But no one promoted the Santa Cruz convention market as well as Fred Swanton. He built the 1911 Casa Del Rey
convention hotel as part of his 1904 Boardwalk development. The Spanish Arches were an elevated hallway over Beach
Street, which connected the hotel to the Cocoanut Grove Ballroom and Bayview Banquet Hall. In back was a palm grove
of private cabins called Cottage City.
1
�The National Editorial Association having a meal on the beach near the Boardwalk, July 5, 1915.
(Photo from Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce Activities, November 1915.)
The Del Rey was easily accessible from the wharf's steamer port and by rail, with special convention trains stopping
under the Spanish Arches. The Del Rey boasted its proximity to the Boardwalk, bathing beach and hot water plunge as
well as fresh-water and salt-water fishing and boating. Its grounds included a putting green under the arches, with
tennis courts in back.
And the hotel's country club was at Pogonip, which included golf links and polo grounds and a clubhouse modeled after
the log clubhouse at Pebble Beach.
When the Sea Beach burned in 1912, it was a great loss of convention space and luxury suites for the waterfront. To
compensate, the La Bahia Courts were built in 1920 as luxury suites for the Casa Del Rey.
The downtown, which had been the center of Santa Cruz tourism, now found its economy in decline, losing out to the
more scenic beachfront facilities. Fred Hotaling, owner of the St. George, decided the only way to recapture the
convention market for downtown was to compete directly with the waterfront.
This began with the 1920 construction of the New Santa Cruz Theater at Pacific and Walnut streets, which served as a
movie theater and civic auditorium. Hotaling expanded the St. George into several adjacent buildings, added a facade in
the Spanish style of the beachfront and, in 1922, renamed it the St. George Mission Inn.
This, coupled with the construction of the 1928 Palomar Hotel, regained the downtown's share of the convention
market.
In a brilliant stroke, businessman Frank Roth leased all three convention hotels in 1930. Having them under the same
management made it easier to book conventions of any size into Santa Cruz, any time of the year.
Promoting the variety of attractions within a five-mile radius of the town's convention hotels soon made Santa Cruz a
top name in the industry. Conventions became a sustaining basis of the Santa Cruz economy.
By 1948, local investment in tourism surpassed all state averages. At one point, there were two to three conventions in
Santa Cruz every week, year- round. Conventioneers brought family and friends, and businesses serving conventions
were filling large orders every month.
2
�Then a protracted restaurant strike in 1953 resulted in a substantial loss of convention bookings in Santa Cruz. Shortly
after, the flood of 1955 killed the industry entirely, destroying the Santa Cruz theater and many businesses downtown
and having much the same effect as the later Loma Prieta earthquake. All convention hotels became retirement homes.
A 1962 plan for a convention center at Lighthouse Field was designed by the late Frank Lloyd Wright's foundation and
consisted of nine three-story crescent hotel wings, a pyramid convention hall and domed pavilions on the cliff,
comprising an "international shopping village" in a parklike setting. When the developer failed to raise funds for the
project, he intended to develop the field piecemeal with a cinder-block motel, restaurant and movie house.
But he sold the property in 1968 to a Los Angeles land speculation firm. Its Hilton plan proposed 11-story, Las Vegasstyle slab skyscrapers and one-third of the field for a parking lot. Plans also called for turning West Cliff Drive into a fourlane highway (wiping out most homes and all front yards on West Cliff) and rezoning the drive as a high-density
commercial strip of motels, fast-food outlets and service stations on the model of Ocean Street.
This also would have isolated the convention market so as not to benefit existing business centers, and that fact
combined with opposition from neighbors to defeat the plan.
Sources
This article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, January 26, 1993, p. 1B. Copyright 1993 Ross
Eric Gibson. Reprinted by permission of Ross Eric Gibson. Photograph is from the November 1915 issue of
Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce Activities.
The content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history
information. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a
variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,
please contact the Webmaster.
3
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Santa Cruz History Articles
Description
An account of the resource
Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books.
Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.
It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
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Santa Cruz Public Libraries
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Identifier
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AR-032
Title
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Santa Cruz has a Long History of Convention Business
Creator
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Gibson, Ross Eric
Source
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<i>San Jose Mercury News</i>, January 26, 1993, p. 1B Photograph is from the November 1915 issue of "Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce Activities".
Publisher
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Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Date
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1/26/1993
Format
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Text
Language
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En
Type
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ARTICLE
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Copyright 1993 Ross Eric Gibson. Reprinted by permission of Ross Eric Gibson.
Subject
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Conventions
Tourism
Coverage
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Santa Cruz (City)
Business
Hotels Camps Etc.
-
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/c6f9fd218a8750872a4273164d062d64.pdf
bfbd93371ac16062b82ed19c7961d1b3
PDF Text
Text
Capitola Hotel’s Heyday
By Ross Eric Gibson
In only 25 years, Capitola went from an 1869 campground to home of one of the top seven coastal resort hotels in
California, the Hotel Capitola. The town of Capitola continued to grow in popularity, and today is a popular beach
destination. On Wednesday Capitola will celebrate its 125th birthday.
In 1869, lumberman and developer F.A. Hihn laid out a campground near his 1857 lumber-shipping wharf at Soquel
Landing. He named it Camp Capitola, after the heroine of a series of novels. When Hihn built his 1875 Santa Cruz Railway
along the coast to Watsonville, he bypassed industrious Soquel to give his Camp Capitola the advantage of a station. This
led to its rapid development.
When a modest hotel was outgrown, Hihn replaced it in 1894 with the palatial Grand Capitola, fashioned after Victorian
resort hotels sometimes called The Rambles. These followed the Picturesque Villa school of wood-frame gingerbread
construction, composed of rambling wings and towers nestled in a scenic landscape. Of these, the Grand Capitola ranked
with coastal California resort hotels like the Del Coronado, Manhattan Beach, Del Monte, the Piedmont, San Francisco's
Cliff House, and Santa Cruz's Sea-Beach.
The first wing of the hotel was constructed in 1894 by Hihn's
favorite Santa Cruz architect, Edward Van Cleeck, who the
year before designed Capitola's bathhouse. Instantly popular,
the hotel doubled in size by the turn of the century. The
Queen Anne-style building with Moorish bell-domes was
painted cream with mustard-gold porches, a vermilion-red
roof, and sea-green porch roofs.
The hotel stretched from where the Capitola Theater is today
to the water's edge. The hotel was noted for its natural light,
A post card of the Capitola Hotel, postmarked April 7, 1908.
and a 1910 postcard said a "jungle of potted palms and
flowers . . ." filled the lobby, dining room, and solarium. Local
author and journalist Josephine Clifford McCrackin said the views from every window were varied and unsurpassed, and
satin, lace and tassels framed every window and archway.
The dining hall was famous for its fresh seafood, brook trout, and wild game. In balmy weather its bank of glass French
doors could be opened onto a central courtyard, making the hall feel like a beach pavilion. The ballroom also opened
onto this court, and some evenings dancing spilled out into a courtyard illuminated with strings of Japanese lanterns.
The hotel's theme song was "The Grand Capitola, or the Phantom Waltz." It was based on a popular dance form, where
ladies stood behind a long sheet held before them, with only their hands or a scarf exposed, which a man would take.
1
�They would discover their partners after the music started and the sheet was lowered. In some places it was considered
a scandalous dance.
The courtyard had a stone promenade along the beach,
ending at a clubhouse. It had a billiard hall and bowling
alley and a roof garden as an observation deck.
What in summer reminded folks of Brighton, England or
the south of France in winter brought visitors to enjoy
dramatic, stormy wave displays "as if from the deck of a
ship." Waves sometimes broke over the clubhouse, and
washed away part of it in 1914. Twin fireplaces made the
reading room a popular place in such weather.
After the hotel opened, Hihn embarked on a unique
scheme in 1896 to electrify the hotel with an experimental
An undated post card showing Capitola beach with the hotel in the
Gerlach wave motor that was supposed to be powered by
background.
natural wave motion, but it was largely unsuccessful. This
hampered Hihn's plans for an electric trolley from Santa
Cruz to Capitola. While building the Santa Cruz boardwalk in 1904, Fred Swanton completed the trolley line, and the
Capitola terminal was behind the hotel, at the foot of stairs scaling Depot Hill. Coast roads also were linked up and
renamed East Cliff Drive, as the scenic auto route from Santa Cruz to Capitola.
After Hihn's death in 1913, millionaire Henry Allen Rispin bought the resort in 1919, hoping to make it the Riviera of the
West. The hotel and community were upgraded, but in August 1929, everything was auctioned. The Depression hit in
October, and when the empty hotel burned on Dec. 16, some speculated it was torched for insurance money. Nothing
has replaced what was called "the heart of Capitola."
Sources
This article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, June 14, 1994, p.1B. Reprinted by permission of
Ross Eric Gibson.
Post cards are from the Santa Cruz Public Libraries' collection.
The content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history
information. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a
variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,
please contact the Webmaster.
2
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Santa Cruz History Articles
Description
An account of the resource
Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books.
Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.
It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
Publisher
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Santa Cruz Public Libraries
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Original Format
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Paper
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Identifier
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AR-033
Title
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Capitola's Hotel Heyday
Creator
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Gibson, Ross Eric
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<i>San Jose Mercury News</i>, June 14, 1994, p.1B. Post cards are from the Santa Cruz Public Libraries' collection.
Publisher
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Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Date
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6/14/1994
Format
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Text
Language
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En
Type
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ARTICLE
Rights
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Copyright 1994 Ross Eric Gibson. Reprinted by permission of Ross Eric Gibson.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Hotels and Boarding Houses
Hotel Capitola
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Capitola
Hotels Camps Etc.
-
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/3e1fd951519d2891151274a352ee3274.pdf
f7e23ea65af66b2529a1d58eb0874a59
PDF Text
Text
Historical Memories Haunt Brookdale
By Ross Eric Gibson
A girl in a formal dress runs across the lobby, then disappears into thin air. In an empty Mermaid Room, voices and
music are softly heard. Hidden rooms and secret passages are mysterious vestiges of Brookdale Lodge's rich past.
Brookdale, two miles south of Boulder Creek, opened in 1900 when the Grover lumber mill was purchased by Judge H.J.
Logan, originator of the loganberry. The extensive acreage became campgrounds and summer cabins, with the mill's loglodge headquarters from 1870 converted into a hotel. A bridge over nearby Clear Creek led to the small dining hall,
which overlooked Minnehaha Falls.
After Dr. F.K. Camp purchased the site, the river changed course in 1922, cutting a channel through the hotel grounds.
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 suggested a marvelous setting for dining, and
Camp envisioned a dining hall straddling the fern-lined creek.
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. It was ranked with Yosemite's
Ahwahnee Lodge as that rare example of serious "rustic style" architecture.
The large barnlike structure resembled a redwood log
cabin, with whole-log verandas decorated in sticks of
"tanglewood gingerbread." Inside, the terraces were
supposed to protect the lodge from rising water. For 70
feet, the creek passed through the dining room, under a
large atrium skylight that allowed continued growth of the
woodwardia and other ferns. Trees growing through the
roof formed a natural canopy.
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.
An undated post card of the dining room.
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.
1
�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 pinecones.
Camp, a Seventh-day Adventist physician, was a strict
prohibitionist. So even the end of Prohibition didn't end his
habit of sniffing the customers' drinks, and pouring out liquor
into the brook. Yet in spite of his idiosyncrasies, Camp's era from 1924 to 1945 was the golden age for the lodge. He ran
it as a first-class retreat, attracting international celebrities, Hollywood stars, presidents and kings. Shirley Temple and
Johnny Weissmuller had homes nearby. Herbert Hoover visited often, and enjoyed fishing off the dining room bridge.
And during the San Francisco conference establishing the United Nations, world leaders and diplomats came to the
lodge to relax.
Brookdale was also a popular host of famous bands and singers of the swing era. At least three songs were written
about the lodge, such as "My Brookdale Hideaway," "A Place Known as Brookdale" and "Beautiful Brookdale Lodge." The
last was an Ink Spots tribute, which will be performed at an upcoming Actors Theatre revue in Santa Cruz.
The lodge changed hands in 1945, shortly before Camp's death. The twin evils which Camp had successfully kept out
during his ownership—booze and gangsters—now became familiar fixtures in a lodge falling rapidly into disrepair. Secret
passageways and hidden rooms filled the lodge, and there were rumors of mobsters having buried a body under the
floor. The capper for this shady era was when the niece of the lodge owner drowned in the dining room creek. Sightings
of her ghost have been reported ever since.
Barney Morrow, who bought the lodge in 1951, remodeled it after a 1956 fire destroyed the dining hall. He called his
design a "Hansel & Gretel theme motel," transforming the redwood buildings into a mock-French Tudor and "Santa's
Village Swiss" hybrid. Most of the campground was paved for a massive parking lot, bordered by a barracks-like motel
wing, the only one built of five planned cinder-block wings.
Current owners are conducting a more sympathetic restoration of the lodge. In 1990, real estate investor Bill Gilbert and
his family paid $2 million for the lodge and surrounding eight acres, and are refurbishing 46 motel rooms, the Brook
Room and the lounge, which are open for business.
Sources
This article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, October 19, 1993. Copyright 1993 Ross Eric
Gibson. Reprinted by permission of the author. Post cards are from the Santa Cruz Public Libraries' collection.
The content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history
information. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a
variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,
please contact the Webmaster.
2
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Santa Cruz History Articles
Description
An account of the resource
Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books.
Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.
It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
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Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
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The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AR-034
Title
A name given to the resource
Historical Memories Haunt Brookdale
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gibson, Ross Eric
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<i>San Jose Mercury News</i>, October 19, 1993.Post cards are from the Santa Cruz Public Libraries' collection.
Publisher
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Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/19/1993
Format
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Text
Language
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En
Type
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ARTICLE
Rights
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Copyright 1993 Ross Eric Gibson. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Brookdale Lodge
Hotels and Boarding Houses
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Brookdale
Business
Hotels Camps Etc.
-
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/08e14fb9289e11dbad693528bf172a61.pdf
bc13d8fb1594b3140132161f87e03117
PDF Text
Text
Mountain Paradise, Mount Hermon has Bohemian Roots
By Ross Eric Gibson
The hallowed grounds of Mount Hermon's Christian retreat have a colorful past. In 1841 the redwood preserve hosted
California's first power sawmill, and a Mexican-era distillery predated the temperance community. But the uninhibited
bohemian resort that eventually became a Christian retreat left a more lasting legacy in its love of the arts.
Thomas Bell had co-founded Ben Lomond in 1887, and established Rowardennan Redwood Park south of it in 1895. But
he sold these holdings when his house burned in 1897, and bought 440 acres around the confluence of Zayante and
Bean creeks, the eventual site of the retreat.
Here he built the Tuxedo Inn and railroad stop for his planned Arcadia Resort. Craftsman log-porch structures filled the
grounds, which included a bowling alley, campgrounds, guest cabins, tennis and croquet courts and creek boating. There
were whispers of a hidden gambling hall. Bohemian artists and writers—turn-of-the-century hippies—were guests and
gave Arcadia a wild reputation.
Then in nearby Glenwood in 1905, a mostly Presbyterian group met seeking a site for a non-denominational Christian
retreat. They had considered Point Lobos, the Russian River and a site bordering Yosemite. But the size and diverse
charms of Arcadia captivated them.
The organizers' pooled their resources and made the down payment. The balance would come from selling stock at $10
a share, with the bonus of an equal value of land for every 10 shares. Six months later, the 1906 earthquake left many
contributors penniless, so the association struggled to refund their money, incurring heavy debts. Yet with devalued land
and precarious finances, Mount Hermon was dedicated July 24, 1906. A year later the debts were paid.
Organizers sought to transform the site's flamboyant reputation by
renaming the hotel, [which was called] the Zayante Inn, although it
came with an elderly resident who haunted the lobby with his foul
language. They christened the resort Mount Hermon, named for
the mountain where Jesus and his disciples went into retreat and
witnessed the transfiguration.
The retreat was modeled after the Chautauqua movement,
founded by New York Methodists in 1874. The tent chautauquas
were traveling summer schools, bringing education, culture and
religious training throughout the country, with special programs
for young people.
1
Post card of the Zayante Inn with two carriages in front.
�Mount Hermon started with a tent-roofed auditorium, in use for many decades. Prominent lecturers and evangelists
have spoken at the center, including Billy Graham in 1958. Groups across the country have studied the center, hoping to
duplicate it.
One of the leaders of the craftsman movement in California, Bernard Maybeck, who designed the Palace of Fine Arts in
San Francisco and pioneered the California brown shingle style, designed Spruce Up Lodge for a friend. It later became
the studio for two stained-glass and mosaic artists, until it was sold in 1968.
Cabins built for as little as $100 showed the self-expression which the craftsman style encouraged. After the 1906
earthquake, several cabins were built entirely of surplus doors. A quake landslide opened up a mountaintop vista, and
one resident built his home and lookout tower at the top. Other cabins had sun-heated water pipes on the roof, which
gave enough hot water for two showers.
Mount Hermon's bohemian days, though tamed, were not
entirely gone. A nearby San Lorenzo swimming hole was
nicknamed "The Garden of Eden" because Mount Hermon boys
swam there nude.
Renowned Santa Cruz artist Frank Heath, who later founded the
Art League, built the art studio next to the auditorium to teach
painting. And nationally recognized artist and teacher James
Addicott established the Summer Institute of Mechanic Arts at
the end of Sequoia Trail, in a grove called Seven Oaks Park. Here
he taught metalwork, pottery, sculpture, woodworking, textiles
The caption on this undated post card reads, "Sequoia Trail, Mt.
and basketry. His curriculum for training teachers produced
Hermon, Cal."
graduates of distinction. David Starr Jordan, founding president
of Stanford University, joined others in praising the school as one of the finest in the country.
The Mechanic Arts School has become today's Gar Dunsheath-Reyna art studio, which will be part of the Open Studios
tour Saturday, Sunday and Oct. 22 and 23. It is at 21 Glen Alpine in Mount Hermon.
Sources
This article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, October 4, 1994, p.1B. Copyright 1994 Ross Eric
Gibson. Reprinted by permission of Ross Eric Gibson.
The post card is from the Santa Cruz Public Libraries' collection.
The content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history
information. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a
variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,
please contact the Webmaster.
2
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Santa Cruz History Articles
Description
An account of the resource
Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books.
Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.
It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AR-035
Title
A name given to the resource
Mountain Paradise, Mount Hermon has Bohemian Roots
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gibson, Ross Eric
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<i>San Jose Mercury News</i>, October 4, 1994, p.1B. The post card is from the Santa Cruz Public Libraries' collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
10/4/1994
Format
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Text
Language
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En
Type
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ARTICLE
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 1994 Ross Eric Gibson. Reprinted by permission of Ross Eric Gibson.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Mount Hermon
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Mount Hermon
Hotels Camps Etc.
Religion
-
https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/d57e2608a2b5f751a79a02c4c4eeeac8.pdf
49e884d7562c946dab34199541e32fa2
PDF Text
Text
The St. George was a Center of Culture and Art
By Ross Eric Gibson
The original St. George Hotel rose out of the ashes of an 1894 fire, then perished in a 1990 fire. During its life, this luxury
hotel was a showplace of art and culture, a civic and community center, and the salvation of downtown Santa Cruz's
tourist industry in the 1920s.
The current building retains some chief features and massing of the original landmark, as an example of rescuing local
heritage through "historic redevelopment."
In the 1880s, Santa Cruz was a favorite vacation spot of San
Francisco millionaire Anson P. Hotaling. He built what
became the "McHugh & Bianchi Building" at Pacific Avenue
and Mission Street in 1886 and opened the "Hotaling House"
at the St. George site. In 1893, he built what became the
boardwalk's first plunge.
The St. George on fire in 1990.
Photo courtesy of John Plock.
That year, he replaced the wooden Hotaling House with a
three-story red brick Italianate hotel. It burned in the Great
Fire of 1894, which wiped out Front Street's Chinatown,
leveled most of the block bounded by Pacific, Front and
Cooper streets, and gutted the courthouse.
As Hotaling rebuilt his hotel, he bought adjacent properties
and built a three-story Front Street wing, and a two-story
addition to the north. To emphasize his hotel's fireproof construction, Hotaling named it the "Hotel St. George" after the
knight who defeated the fire-breathing dragon.
As the last word in luxury, the Baronial Hall lobby boasted a Paris Opera–style marble staircase, which included a band
balcony for a string ensemble. The mosaic floor was hand laid by Italian artisans, with a custom lobby carpet displaying
the St. George crest. Paintings included works commissioned from western artist A.D.M. Cooper.
The lobby's side doors led to Tanner's Soda Fountain, the St. George Billard Hall, and the Bandbox Barbershop, which
included a bathhouse in the barbershop basement. The lobby's newsstand included a telegraph service, the fax machine
of its day for travelers who needed to stay in touch with the outside world. The town's first hydraulic elevator graced the
lobby and attracted people from all over for rides.
The hotel was considered a marvel of engineering, for the way natural light illuminated all floors, eliminating the need
for artificial light during the day. Yet the solarium halls never became unbearably hot, as high ceilings and ventilation
1
�provided natural air conditioning. During World War II, many windows and skylights were painted for blackout
requirements, a condition never reversed, producing unnecessary gloom.
The Hotalings had their own elegant suite for their visits, and friends who stayed here, such as William Randolph Hearst,
pronounced it "the finest hotel between San Francisco and Monterey." It was as much a community center, housing the
public library upstairs and the Superior Court chambers in its Front Street hall, until the new courthouse was
constructed.
Afterward, this hall became the Wisteria Dining Room, bedecked with heroic-sized murals by a German artist depicting
dancing nymphs. This was one of Santa Cruz's rare art nouveau rooms, capturing the bawdy elegance of San Francisco's
"Champagne Days." The central courtyard was glassed in to create the Palm Court Tea Room, a plant-filled conservatory
regarded as the hotel's finest space.
In 1911, Fred Swanton added the Casa Del Rey Hotel to his boardwalk development, followed in 1920 by the La Bahia
Hotel, shifting the convention and tourist market away from downtown.
To recapture that business, Frederick Hotaling (who took over after his father's death), purchased two buildings north of
the St. George for expansion, making it the largest hotel in the county. A unifying Mission Revival facade was added in
1922, with the hotel renamed the "St. George Mission Inn."
The strategy worked. Then in 1930, the St. George, Palomar and Casa Del Rey were united under one management, and
Santa Cruz became the top Northern California convention city outside San Francisco.
Following World War I, the lobby served a greater civic function, with side rooms housing the Red Cross, the junior
chamber of commerce, the state Board of Equalization, and the hotel's library. And during Swanton's years as mayor
(1927-1933), the band balcony became his mayoral office, where he presided over the lobby like a king in his court.
In 1925, Anson's widow, son Frederick, and daughter were eating breakfast at their San Francisco home when they
noticed the milk smelled funny. They had it analyzed and discovered it had been poisoned by a relative who wanted to
kill all who stood in his way of inheriting Anson's fortune. The St. George was sold soon after.
The hotel was heavily damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta quake and burned in a 1990 fire. It was rebuilt and reopened in
1992.
Sources
This article originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, February 28, 1995, p.1B. Copyright 1995 Ross
Eric Gibson. Reprinted with the permission of Ross Eric Gibson.
The content of this article is the responsibility of the individual author. It is the Library's intent to provide accurate local history
information. However, it is not possible for the Library to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a
variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in a local history article are incorrect and can provide documentation,
please contact the Webmaster.
2
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Santa Cruz History Articles
Description
An account of the resource
Original articles by library staff and by local authors and material from historical books.
Articles on Santa Cruz County history, many with illustrations, are available here.
The Santa Cruz Public Libraries is grateful to our local historians and their publishers for giving permission to include their articles. The content of the articles is the responsibility of the individual authors.
It is the library's intent to provide accurate information. However, it is not possible to completely verify the accuracy of individual articles obtained from a variety of sources. If you believe that factual statements in an article are incorrect and can provide documentation, please contact the library.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Document
A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text.
Original Format
If the image is of an object, state the type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Paper
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
AR-036
Title
A name given to the resource
The St. George was a Center of Culture and Art
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Gibson, Ross Eric
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<i>San Jose Mercury News</i>, February 28, 1995, p.1B.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Santa Cruz Public Libraries
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2/28/1995
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
En
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
ARTICLE
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
Copyright 1995 Ross Eric Gibson. Reprinted with the permission of Ross Eric Gibson.
Subject
The topic of the resource
St. George Hotel
Hotels and Boarding Houses
Hotaling, Anson
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Cruz (City)
Hotels Camps Etc.