Tourism and real estate construction are Big Bear Lake’s two major industries.  Today, the majority of the homes that have been built in Big Bear are owned by vacation homeowners.   The private home vacation rental business materialized at the same time the that the first lodges began to appear in the early 1900’s.  Here is a little history of tourism and lodging in Big Bear Lake.

When Big Bear Lake was created in 1885, the valley was pretty much devoid of any human activity except for a couple ranchers, a few Serrano Indians and an occasional prospector.   There were no lodges, hotels or vacation homes.  The village didn’t exist, and the only two roads into the valley should have been called trails.  A trip to Big Bear from San Bernardino usually took two days with a combination of horse drawn stage and burro pack trains.  Even so, each summer would find campers and fisherman camped out all around Big Bear Lake.  This situation didn’t go unnoticed by two local Big Bear ranchers, Gus Knight Jr. and John Metcalf.  They saw an opportunity, and decided to do something about it.

In 1888, they formed a partnership, purchased 80 acres just south of where the village sits today, and built Big Bear’s first resort hotel, the Bear Valley Hotel.  In spite of the difficulties involved in getting to Big Bear, the new hotel was booked solid with advance reservations.  As soon as it opened, tents and cots were added to handle the overflow of guests.  This was the start of the tourist and vacation rental business in Big Bear.

After a few years, Knight bought out Metcalf, and renamed the resort Knight’s Hotel.  The little Hotel was strictly a summer time operation, but it enjoyed a monopoly on the tourist trade in Big Bear.  That monopoly lasted until Christmas Eve December 24, 1900, when the hotel mysteriously burned to the ground.  The hotel had been closed up for the winter, and the cause of the fire was never determined.  There were no other resorts in the valley, and the private home vacation rental business didn’t exist yet.  So overnight the Big Bear resort industry had been wiped out.  But not for long.

The success of Knight’s Bear Valley Hotel had been noted by the board of directors of the water company that owned the Big Bear Lake, and by 1900, the roads into Big Bear were beginning to improve thanks primarily to Gus Knights Bear Valley Toll Road that he had opened in 1891.  As a result a group of wealthy investors, which included Bear Valley Mutual Water Company directors Herbert Garstin and William Glass, got together and formed a syndicate in 1906, to purchase what was left of the Bear Valley Hotel property.  With almost unlimited financial resources, they proceeded built a huge first class resort called Pine Knot Lodge.

This new lodge was massive.  It had a main Pavilion, a dining room, a social hall, a post office, a freight depot, and 21 cabins.  Pine Knot Lodge quickly became the center of a growing community that began to develop between the lodge and the lake.  That community consisted primarily of a small group of camps that sprang up to handle the overflow of tourists from Pine Knot Lodge.  Town meetings, dances, and other community events usually took place in the Pine Knot Lodge social hall.

It was around 1917, on an unnamed dirt road that ran east and west next to those early camps, that a few businesses like the Big Bear Pavilion, the Grizzly Theatre, the Navajo Hotel, Chad’s and Heller’s Trading Post began to appear.  This was the beginning of today’s Village Drive.

About that same time, the land along the lake was subdivided into lots, and vacation homes were built.   B.G. Holmes, was a local real estate broker and owner of the Indian Lodge which was located at the south/west end of Village Drive.  He came to Big Bear in 1916, and it is generally acknowledged that he was the first person to handle private vacation home rentals in Big Bear Lake.

Pine Knot Lodge continued to expand, with new cabins constantly being added.  In 1914, Fred C. Skinner took over management of the lodge.  He was known simply as “Dad”, and he worked tirelessly to promote Big Bear and Pine Knot Lodge.  Skinner installed a generating plant that provided electric power for the lodge five years before electricity came to Big Bear, and he aggressively  promoted Pine Knot with the movie industry.  He even kept the Lodge open throughout the winter so movies could be made year round.

By the early 1920’s, Fawnskin was also growing rapidly, and new lodges were being built  all over Big Bear Valley.  Those early lodges were full destination resorts.  Each new lodge was trying to outdo the previous lodges in both size and grandeur.  Most of them also handled vacation home rentals on the side.  From the 1920’s on, Big Bear has never had a shortage of private vacation homes to rent.  Those early lodges were happy to help vacation homeowners make extra money with their overflow of guests.

The largest and most exclusive of those early lodges was without question, the Peter Pan Woodland Club in Big Bear City.  Lodging at the Woodland Club was restricted to members only, and the guest list read like a “who’s/who” of Hollywood.   What most people don’t know was that this lodge was built and operated for the sole purpose of promoting the vacation home market in Big Bear.

The Peter Pan Woodland Club story will be posted in July.  See you then.

© Rick Keppler

For a more detailed look at Big Bear’s fascinating history, go to the Channel-6 website program guide.  There you will find the dates and times for the various Big Bear Historical episodes on Channel-6’s History Show.

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