LORE · HISTORICAL MARKER
Club Arrowhead in the Pines
Lore
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Club Arrowhead Villas was constructed and dedicated in 1926 by The Atkins Corporation as a luxury resort in the San Bernardino Mountains for wealthy patrons seeking adventure and relaxation. This isolated enclave included an opulent dining clubhouse, country inn and market, and a sports facility, all built in the English Tudor style with modern amenities such as electric lighting while retaining a rustic mountain character with riding stables, a ski run, tennis courts, and an Olympic size swimming pool. In 1929, the Great Depression, together with the Roaring 20’s and the Prohibition Era, ushered in a new age of moonshine, gambling, and dance hall girls. The clubhouse became a casino, the inn became a brothel, and the aquifers that watered the pool house came to support a taste for “shine,” under the watchful eyes of Los Angeles mobsters and rumored management by Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. By the early 1950’s, Club Arrowhead Villas had again become a respectable community establishment, though ghost stories endured about Violet, a working girl killed by a jealous mobster whose perfume drifts through the halls, a small boy killed by a passing ice truck whose footsteps appear in fresh morning snow, and a young Indian maiden who asks for help crossing the waters of Fleming Creek. With a dedication to California’s historical past, the properties were reunited and fully restored in a new vision of The Atkins Corporation as a place for arts and entertainment for visitors and mountain residents alike, with the casino becoming The Tudor House, the inn becoming The Bracken Fern Manor, and the pool house becoming The Club House.
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Lake Arrowhead, California
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