After a weekend at Brookdale Lodge, I was curious as to what was the actual, known history. Google, here I come.

1870 - Opened as the headquarters of Grove Lumber Mill, area was known as Clear Creek

1900 - Purchased by James Harvey Logan, lawyer, judge and horticulturist, converted into campgrounds and a hotel, (cabins, campgrounds, and a small dining hall)

            He is listed as John H,  H. J. James, Harvey, Judge Harvey, depending on where you look. Familysearch has nothing, odd. Santa Cruz county records say Judge James Harvey.

            Harvey was born in 1841/2 in Indiana, his parents were from Kentucky per 1880 Santa Cruz census. The Logan family is riddled with James and Harveys, related to Kid Curry.

1902 - Logan purchased the site of the town of Brookdale, known as Brookville

1909 - Mrs Logan died July 17

1910 - Logan married M.E. Couson August 1

1911 - Daughter was born August 14

1913 - Logan moved to Oakland but continued interests in Brookdale

1922 - Lodge was operated by Dr. F. K. Camp, a Seventh-day Adventist physician and a strict prohibitionist. The brook changes course and now runs through the lodge grounds.

???? - Camp hired Architect and Landscaper Horace Cotton, who successfully designed a dining room to straddle the live creek.

???? - Camp had the original 1870 building remodeled into a lobby and reading room. He would sniff customer's drinks and pour alcohol, if found, into the brook.

1917? - Sarah Logan (niece of owner, then Camp?) drowns in the creek

1928 - Judge Logan died

1945 - Camp sold the lodge to A. T. Cook and W. G. Smith

1951 - Sold to a consortium of San Francisco businessmen and then to Barney Marrow, who also owned the Brookdale Inn across the highway.

1956 - Brook room rebuilt after fire, campgounds were paved for a parking lot. (pave paradise, put up a parking lot, la la la la)

AP Investigations site says the fire resulted in the death of five people, a serious flod in 1955 and another fire.

1960's - Most cabins demolished, hotel rooms took their place

1972 - 13 year old girl drowned in the swimming pool.

1982 - Heavy flooding damaged much of the dining room.

1990 - Estate investor Bill Gilbert and his family paid $2 million for the lodge and surrounding eight acres

2003 - Sylvia Browne publishes a book that includes her Brookdale visit, but she sees Sarah drowned in 1950, had a nanny anmes Maria and re-enacts the fall in the dining room

2005 - Apartments were burned

2007 Oct - Sanjiv Kakkar  (or Rajiv Kakkar, owner of the SF Abigail) purchased the lodge for 5.34 million

Information procured from:

thehauntedbay.com

www.epinions.com/content_226842676868

montereybay.org/haunted-ghost-brookdale-lodge.html

http://www.santacruzpl.org/history/mtecho/names/pnlew-log.shtml

http://www.bartleby.com/61/94/L0229400.html

http://www.ap-investigations.com/Brookdale_Lodge_History.html

Back to Ghost Stories

Back to Travel Blogs