In the 1940s it was the place where Hollywood’s brightest star’s came to relax. While the likes of Lucille Ball, Spencer Tracy and Clark Gable (pictured) sipped cocktails on the terrace, the swimmer and actress Esther Williams ground out lengths in a pool that would eventually be named after her.
Now, after decades of neglect, the Arrowhead Springs Hotel in San Bernardino is being sold by Cru, an interdenominational ministry once known as the Campus Crusade for Christ which acquired the hotel in the Sixties. It has put a starting price of $57m (£33.8m) on the Art Deco property which now sits in one of California’s less salubrious areas.
San Bernardino is effectively bankrupt and has one of the highest crime rates in the state. Its civic leaders, however, have rezoned the land the Arrowhead stands on for 1,350 residential units and 800,000 square feet of commercial buildings, as well as a hotel, allowing a new owner to start work immediately.
There are currently 240,000sq ft of buildings, including the historic hotel, a spa resort, village dormitories, 11 celebrity-named bungalows, a chapel, a pool and maintenance buildings on the site. Depending on the scale of the redevelopment, from complete demolition to meticulous restoration, the cost of overhauling the site could be as much as £1bn — close to £594m.
The 2,000-acre property, in the shadow of the Arrowhead geological monument, has a troubled history. In 1895 a fire destroyed a mission-style hotel built by pioneer businessman Seth Marshall. A new hotel called Big Buff Castle was built on the site, with reservoirs for natural spring water, tennis courts, bungalows and a swimming pool added in 1925.
Thirteen years later another fire destroyed the majority of the buildings on the estate. This time a 150-room hotel designed by Paul Revere Williams was built and named the Arrowhead Springs Hotel. Its success was guaranteed when the owners invited the Marx Brothers, Judy Garland, Al Jolson, Rudy Vallee and Jimmy Durante to its 1939 opening.
Throughout the Second World War and what remained of the 1940s it became the retreat of choice for America’s elite. Eleanor Roosevelt, the President’s wife, wrote in her diary that she was “very much interested” in the Arrowhead Springs Hotel and its “unique” swimming pool.
In 1950, the 17-year-old Elizabeth Taylor honeymooned there with her first husband Conrad “Nicky” Hilton who, two years later, would buy the hotel complex. With air travel luring Hollywood’s rich and famous away from San Bernardino to more exotic locations, his attempts at reviving the hotel included a complete restyling with a Western cowboy theme. By 1956 the Arrowhead was haemorrhaging $1,500 (£889) a day.
Finally, in 1962, Arrowhead Springs was purchased by Campus Crusade for Christ which initially used it as its world headquarters and conference centre until 1999, when the renamed Cru moved its offices to Orlando, Florida.
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