LUCERNE, Calif. – On Christmas Eve, the Lucerne Christian Conference Center – known simply as “The Castle” to those who know and love the landmark building – was abuzz with activity, as staff and volunteers prepared a Christmas day feast that volunteer Ray Tate called “fit for a king.”
On Christmas day the building – located at 3700 Country Club Drive, overlooking much of the town and the lake – was opened to seniors and those in need, who were welcomed to a daylong celebration that included the holiday dinner with all the trimmings and two religious services. Hundreds were expected to attend.
But behind the hopeful attitude of the season and the building's cheerful decorations there was an unmistakable undertone of sadness.
Dan Pelletier, who has been the center's administrator since 2004, walked around the building and talked about it with love and an unmistakable wistfulness in his voice.
That's because the building that has been home to him and his family, and which for more than 40 years has served as a Christian conference center, will be closed as of Dec. 31. The Christmas day event is its first and last under the current ownership.
The center, which also goes by the name of Castlepoint Ministries, is owned by a group of independent Baptist churches – most of them from the Bay Area – which have run Christian conferences, retreats and children's camps at the facility, said Kevin Schmidt, pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Sonora, and treasurer of the center's 10-member board of directors.
The San Francisco Baptist Theological Seminary purchased what formerly was known as the Lucerne Hotel in 1966, according to Pelletier.
The seminary bought the abandoned building – erected in 1927 at a cost of $500,000 – for $150,000, according to a history of the building Pelletier provided to Lake County News.
Pelletier said activity at the center has been growing over the last four years, with visitors coming from around California and the rest of the nation – as far away as Pennsylvania and New York – to go on retreat there.
The center's 2007 report to the Internal Revenue Service noted that it served 2,236 campers that year. Its IRS report includes total expenses of more than $441,000 and total revenue of more than $367,000 for 2007.
This year was “the best year we had in a long time,” said Pelletier.
The center had hosted events such as open houses and blood drives for the community, and over the last year had hosted the Northshore Business Association's monthly breakfasts. Pelletier said they even had rented the building out for a few weddings this past year.
But the bottom “dropped out” when it came to reservations and bookings for the year ahead, with many churches calling to say that, with members losing homes, retreats and activities were being canceled, Pelletier said. The concern for the board was that by the end of 2009 they could be into deficit spending.
The economy's worsening state led the group to look at whether or not it could continue operating the building, said Schmidt.
A Castlepoint Ministries brochure said the group is “committed to fiscal responsibility,” and won't spend or borrow more money that can be provided through gifts of local churches and individuals, and fees generated from the center's programs and rentals.
On Nov. 15, Castlepoint Ministries put out “a very urgent prayer request” asking for spiritual support before the Nov. 21 board meeting, at which time they were to make a final decision regarding the ministry's future. At that time, they anticipated a shortfall of $300,000 in 2009.
Another prayer request, sent out Nov. 19, reported that monetary gifts had been offered, but that they needed to look at whether or not the gifts would help overcome the financial shortfall. Castlepoint said at that point that the financial issues was due to significant rental cancellations, two refurbishing projects relating to codes or public safety and increased operational expenses.
“We had to make a very, very difficult decision to not continue with the ministry at that location,” Schmidt said. “What our plan is for the future is to seek a sale of the building and the property that's there.”
Pelletier said they're also considering having a liquidation company come in and sell off the building's furnishings, including some antique furniture in the rooms.
Schmidt said the board will stay intact and seek to relocate its camp and retreat facilities to another Northern California location.
The closure led to the layoff of eight staffers, said Schmidt. Besides Pelletier, his wife and mother-in-law – who also worked at the building – were let go, along with two full-time cooks, a couple who were responsible for the building's maintenance and janitorial services, and another woman who worked on programs. A maintenance director will be retained to be an on-site security supervisor, said Schmidt.
By Christmas Eve, most of those employees already had been let go, said Pelletier, with the cooks already gone and volunteers making the vast Christmas meal.
“It's just a shame to lose it,” said Pelletier.
History repeats itself for a landmark
The history of the Lucerne Hotel bears the signs of many derailments and unfulfilled visions, starting not long after its birth.
Local histories report that the Clear Lake Beach Co., financed in part by Louis Becker, acquired more than 100 acres along Clear Lake's eastern shore – essentially all of Lucerne, except for 21 acres – in 1923.
In 1926, the dream that resulted in what would become the Lucerne Hotel began, with the 75,000-square-foot building beginning to take shape the following year, under the guidance of Massachusetts-born contractor Frank Ray Phillips and builder Vernon Knowles, said Pelletier.
Built of virgin redwood, the building features enormous hand-hewn timbers in its second-floor sitting areas, dining room and lobby.
The hotel was at the center of a planned retirement community which was to include a country club, a golf course and a canal leading from the lake to the building, according to Pelletier. None of those projects were completed.
The plan included Lucerne's 13th Avenue, also called The Strand, which Pelletier said was designed specifically to join the hotel to a dance pavilion, bathhouses, a pier and a supper club – the latter, which later was destroyed by fire, was believed to be in the location now occupied by the abandoned Pepper's restaurant – on the lakeshore.
Then things started to unravel.
In 1928, construction on the project was halted after Becker died in an airplane crash. The hotel's four-story tower was never completed, and remains an empty shell. Pelletier said the owners had hoped to make it into a prayer room, but those plans were never completed, either.
The hotel continued to operate until the second blow: The Great Depression.
As the country's economy came crashing down in 1929, the last of the dream that had fostered the hotel's creation turned to dust as well. The building's operators went bankrupt, said Pelletier.
From there, the building passed through a series of owners. Pelletier said the Seventh-day Adventists planned to use it as a sanitarium, before discovering that they couldn't get beds through the doors. Later, a group of conservative Baptists used it for a conference center and still other owners used it as a country club.
The seminary purchased the building in 1966, and when it closed in the 1980s the current group took it over.
A former caretaker named “Old Joe” oversaw the building for years, carrying a sidearm and keeping an old white horse in a room next door to the center's large kitchen, said Pelletier.
Tales of Louis Becker's ghost roaming the hallways, grieving over his failed dream and incomplete building, helped keep the place safe from destruction by looters and vandals, according to a building history. There also were rumors about gambling dens and a “secret room” associated with the old hotel.
Pelletier said after the current owners had possession of it, a former director, Don Morgan, had a completely new veranda put on the building in the 1980s.
During Pelletier's tenure, the main project has been seeing the building reroofed. Estimates to complete that project had run into the millions, but Pelletier said they were able to do half of it for $50,000, with volunteer labor.
He said many individuals and church groups have volunteered time and labor to improve the building through painting and other work.
Other plans for the building, according to Pelletier, had included building a climbing wall, refurbishing the tennis and basketball courts, replacing the chain link fence with wrought iron, installing a zip line and building a gazebo in the rose garden area. The owners had hoped to start a Christian day school there and host post-graduate ministry training courses through a Christian college.
Pelletier said he has done extensive traveling over the last year in order to tell people about the center and to find volunteers to help with the summer camp, but those plans were brought up short by the plans to close the building.
“We had dreams,” he said, adding that he would have liked to have seen the building renovated to its potential.
An uncertain future
Today, the building features 69 rooms and a dormitory for a total of 245 beds, said Pelletier. The Castle sits on seven acres of property, with basketball and tennis courts that are in need of restoration, a rose garden, swimming pool and two houses connected with the property.
Schmidt said the center's board hasn't established an asking price for the building. He said they are still in the early stages of deciding how to proceed.
“It is owned by us outright,” said Schmidt. “We can hold it until a qualified buyer is able to come forward.”
Pelletier said they already have received inquiries from prospective buyers, including another Christian group.
Both Pelletier and Schmidt confirmed that county officials also have expressed interest.
County Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Cox told Lake County News that he and Deputy Redevelopment Director Eric Seely met recently with the center's board members to discuss the building's future.
“We have emphasized the importance of the property to the community of Lucerne and we have offered to assist them in marketing the property to private investors who would develop it in a manner that would be consistent with the Redevelopment Agency's goals,” Cox said.
He added that the county has applied for and received a state Community Development Block Grant to have an appraisal of the property prepared and a report to assess the highest and best use of the facility in order to assist in its sale.
Seely said he has already taken a look at the building's structure, including going through its crawl spaces and attic. Overall, although the building needs some work – particularly its exterior and grounds – he said the structure is in very good shape.
He said Supervisor Denise Rushing asked for a discussion on the building to be placed on the Board of Supervisors' agenda for Jan. 13, 2009.
Cox said at that time he and his staff will request the board's direction on possible options for redevelopment's involvement with the property.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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