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Todos Santos / Hotel California articles...
Two articles by Susan Ferriss from Nov 11, 2002:
http://www.austin360.com/aas/travel/111702/1117hotelcalside....
and:
TODOS SANTOS, Mexico ? Just as the song says, it's on a dark desert highway and there's a cool wind in your hair.
Locals admit that the "warm smell of colitas" ? Mexican slang for a joint ? has been known to rise up through the air.
Welcome to the Hotel California, in Todos Santos, a quiet desert oasis flanked by endless Pacific Coast beach near the tip of Mexico's Baja California
peninsula.
Legend has it that a sunset-colored building here called the Hotel California inspired the Eagles' 1976 rock 'n' roll classic of the same name.
The group's publicist and at least one songwriter deny it, but there's no denying that some of the song's lyrics and its Spanish-flavored guitar
mirror the atmosphere in Todos Santos. And there's no denying that the hotel feels haunted by the spirits of surfers and hippies who experienced
wilder times in Baja during the 1960s and '70s.
"There are other Hotel Californias. There's one in Germany, for example. But nothing fits the bill like this one," said Canadian John Stewart, who,
with a business partner, recently bought the Hotel California here for about $1 million.
The 75-year-old building, blessed with faded elegance and closed for the last four years, is now undergoing a face-lift that the new owners hope to
complete by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the mystery of the Eagles' song endures, with some fans claiming it's a metaphor for Los Angeles' hedonistic rock lifestyle, others
claiming it's about Satanism.
But for years, Eagles' fans have also traveled to Todos Santos to photograph or stay at the place that many fantasize was immortalized in the song.
Mexican locals might not understand the Eagles' lyrics, but they do know an attraction when they see one.
"People are really happy the hotel is opening again," said Stewart, proudly displaying a bottle of the "Hotel California" tequila he'll offer guests.
"If the Eagles didn't come here before," he said, "they're going to wish they had."
In the song, the Eagles' message starts out sweet, gradually turning sinister, with guests brandishing "steely knives" yet failing to "kill the
beast."
"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave," the song cryptically ends.
That won't be the case, according to the owners, nor will there be "mirrors on the ceiling, pink champagne on ice."
Instead, original, beautifully scuffed Spanish tile will cool the floors of spacious salons ? one of which will be a spa ? and Mexican hand-blown
glass chandeliers will adorn the ceilings.
The hotel's 1960s-era utilitarian rooms are being converted into elegantly furnished $100 to $200 hideaways that open onto rooftop patios with views.
Stewart and partner Witold Twardowski say they have it from reliable sources that one of the Eagles' collaborators did indeed visit Todos Santos back
in the hippie heydays.
But they don't intend to make a big deal of the legend, and guests won't be force-fed Eagles' music.
"The town is rich enough on its own," said Twardowski. "The legend just adds to the intrigue."
Standing on a step of the empty shell-shaped pool, he pointed to the Spanish mission church that looms behind the hotel. The Eagles' song opens with a
man approaching the Hotel California, hearing a "mission bell" and thinking: "This could be heaven or this could be hell."
"That's the mission in the song," Twardowski said, as if it were obvious. "It's beautiful at night. The choir sings, and the bells ring."
Above the hotel's second-floor veranda, faded painted flowers arch around doors that overlook the street. Directly in front, a store on the other side
of the street called the "Tequila Sunrise" ? another Eagles' classic ? sells maps emblazoned with "Hotel California" lyrics.
"One of the reasons people come here ? whether the Eagles were here or not ? is the hotel. It doesn't seem to matter if it's true. People want to
believe it," said Stewart's wife, Debbie, as she rested under the veranda, petting her Chihuahua.
Todos Santos is about an hour's drive north of Cabo San Lucas, but it's a world away from that resort, with its inflated hotel prices and U.S.
fast-food chains.
Since American surfers discovered its big waves and cheap Corona, expatriate artists have also converged on Todos Santos, opening galleries, B&Bs and
cafes.
"We saw the potential to create something different from Cabo," Stewart said, explaining the town's lure. "This is historic. We don't have to fake it
here."
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http://makeashorterlink.com/?R2E2212B2
by CLAUDIA CAPOS
TODOS SANTOS, MEXICO?Countless rock `n' roll aficionados have travelled the "dark, desert highway" from the sun-and-surf tourist haven of Cabo San
Lucas to tranquil Todos Santos, a rural Mexican town 100 kilometres north, just to see the fabled Hotel California.
This mystical wayfarer's hostelry was popularized in the No. 1 hit album and song, "Hotel California," released by the Eagles in 1976. Since then, it
has become an icon of the hippie heydays right up there with Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane.
Never mind that the 80-year-old grande dame on Avenida Juarez was shuttered for many moons, with peeling stucco and cracked windows. Baby boomers,
including former president Bill Clinton, still came in droves to pay homage to "such a lovely place," as the song goes, and to revel in bygone times.
Through a strange twist of fate, the Hotel California has been spared the wrecking ball and, by year's end, visitors once more will "dance in the
courtyard."
Last March, Vancouver-area entrepreneur John Stewart and his partner, Witold Twardowski, purchased the property for nearly $1 million (U.S.) and began
restoring its spacious public areas and guestrooms. The hotel's La Colonela restaurant opens Dec. 15 and a gift shop, spa and tequila cantina will
follow.
"The Hotel California was vacant for a long time, but the building had a lot of potential," Stewart says. "The first time I saw it, I said, `Someone
has to do it.'" The 52-year-old property developer moved to Mexico from Galiano Island four years ago with his wife, Debbie, and daughter, Zoe. The
Stewarts became interested in the hotel during a Historic Home Tour in February, 2001, and 11-year-old Zoe told her father: "It's a cool hotel, let's
buy it." By summer, the impending deal had progressed far enough for the family to move to Todos Santos from Cabo San Lucas.
Increasing numbers of vacationers and retirees, mostly Americans and Canadians, also have discovered Todos Santos, Spanish for all saints, as Cabo San
Lucas has grown more congested and expensive.
"Cabo is a bit of a Disneyland and this is an artistic alternative," Stewart explains. "People come up here looking for the real Mexico." Jesuit
padres founded Todos Santos as a farming settlement and chapel in 1724 to supply the mission community in La Paz with fruits, vegetables, wine and
sugarcane. The growth of the sugar business brought prosperity until the industry folded after World War II and the town slipped into obscurity.
In 1984, noted Taos, New Mexico, artist Charles C. Stewart (no relation) and his wife, Mary Lou, became the first well-known artists to settle
permanently in Todos Santos, and, for that matter, in Baja itself, a cactus-studded land with a few oases of greenery.
Since then the backwater town with its cool fan palms and dirt side streets has attracted a small coterie of accomplished painters, sculptors and
artisans who have succumbed to the enchantment of the dazzling blue Pacific waters, fiery opal sunsets and craggy peaks of far-off Sierra de la
Laguna.
Nowadays, Todos Santos enjoys widespread acclaim as a well-established art colony with more than a dozen galleries and a major art festival in
February. Yet, it is still the Hotel California that consistently draws the standing-room-only crowds.
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