jide
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hotel california todos santos
My buddy just came back from Todos Santos, and was telling me about Hotel California .
Does anyone know the true facts about that hotel and its claim to be the Eagles' inspiration for the famous song?
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JESSE
Ultra Nomad
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Non of it is true.
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RandyMacSC/SO
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If my long term memory serves me right...
I do recall smokin' a fatty with Jimmy Hendrix there once. Or was it ...
I don't believe it is true, but it makes for great advertising and seems to draw many curious tourists. Sometimes a little bull goes a long way. 
RandyMac
==============================================
Ole' Irish saying (Gaelic): 'Go neirigh an bothar leat, go mbeidh an gaoth choiche sa droim agat, is go mbeidh tu thuas ar neamh leath-uair roimh is
eol don diabhal go bhuil tu marbh'.... OR 'May the road rise up to meet you, May the wind always be at your back, and May you be in Heaven a half hour
before the Devil knows you're dead'
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JESSE
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Here you go:
http://www.todossantos-baja.com/todos-santos/eagles/don-henl...
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jide
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Thanks Jessee!!
My friend is very disappointed, you should have seen his face!! looked like a kid who just discovered the truth about Santa Claus!!!
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RandyMacSC/SO
Special Correspondent
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Tell him not to be too disappointed. Papa Noel stayed there last year...
I used to take my Santa suit with me to the Baja and do the Papa Noel thing. Last XMas I did my gig and put the suit away for the next year. In
January I met a Bostonian on Los Cerritos beach who was so depressed. After a good chat with him and his girlfriend about ways to feel better about
life, I went to my motorhome, got my Santa outfit out, big red bag and all and gave it to him. He put the big red fat man suit on, walked up and down
the beach and brought smiles to people's faces and then left in his rental car with a smile from ear to ear. He was off to Todos to do his first Papa
Noel gig.
The next day I went to get groceries in Todos from Los Cerritos. I parked my car by the Hotel California. When I came back I found a note on my
window. It was from the Master Chef from Boston. He stayed at the Hotel California the night before and he said he had so much fun with his girlfriend
doing the Santa gig, bringing joy and smiles to people inside and outside the hotel the afternoon and evening before. He siad it was a miracle, and he
had a much better outlook on life.
Forget Don Henely and the boys from the Eagles. Santa really did stay at the Hotel California.
RandyMac
[Edited on 11-2-2004 by RandyMac]
[Edited on 11-2-2004 by RandyMac]
==============================================
Ole' Irish saying (Gaelic): 'Go neirigh an bothar leat, go mbeidh an gaoth choiche sa droim agat, is go mbeidh tu thuas ar neamh leath-uair roimh is
eol don diabhal go bhuil tu marbh'.... OR 'May the road rise up to meet you, May the wind always be at your back, and May you be in Heaven a half hour
before the Devil knows you're dead'
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BajaNomad
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The main page for the link Jesse put up:
http://www.todossantos-baja.com/todos-santos/eagles/hotel-ca...
And some other background from:
http://www.freewebs.com/hotelcal/mythsandlegends.htm
Is the hotel in Mexico?
Down a dark desert highway, an hour past the last golf course in Cabo San Lucas, lies the Hotel California. Many swear it's the same place
immortalized in the rock 'n' roll anthem recorded by the Eagles.
And it's for sale.
Mirrors on the ceiling? Pink champagne on ice? Not quite, despite the promise of the song's familiar lyrics. When California developer Ray DeGennaro
first came here in 1986, Todos Santos was a fishing village well off the beaten track. The Hotel California was a $2.50-a-night hostel with
broken-down beds and a hippie clientele. He and his wife fell in love with the place and bought it for just under $100,000.
"We were doing something crazy," the 63-year-old Mr. DeGennaro says. Maybe not that crazy. Mr. DeGennaro is now asking $950,000 for his hotel and he
may even get it, despite the fact that the place has been closed for over a year and needs considerable work to reopen. That's partly because Todos
Santos has become a trendy destination attracting more than its share of Hollywood's glitterati and dot-com nouveau riche. Still, a million dollars?
Besides the tiny concrete pool Mr. DeGennaro installed on the patio and the motel-style shower stalls he put in each of the 16 guest rooms, there's
little to attract lodgers, especially with so much luxury competition being developed along Todos Santos' pristine shoreline. But music aficionados
might consider the price a bargain for the chance to own an authentic rock landmark. If it is one.
Local folklorists have spent two decades spinning a yarn for tourists about the Eagles' drummer, Don Henley, and the group's 1977 hit song. It goes
like this: Mr. Henley made the hotel his base for a drug-and-tequila-laced sabbatical in the mid-1970s. The church behind the hotel's garden? That's
where Mr. Henley "heard the mission bell." The raven-haired beauty that lit a candle to show him down a dark corridor? The owner's daughter, Maria.
The legend spread south to Cabo San Lucas and into Baja tourist guides. From the guides it skipped to travel features in several U.S. newspapers, some
of them publishing a version that had Mr. Henley returning to become the hotel's owner.
The tale also emerged online, surfacing last year on the Internet auction site eBay. "This is it! This is the hotel in the song," screamed the message
panel on real-estate item No. 260042349. "Guess What? You now have the opportunity to own it!!!!" In fact, about the only thing more durable than
Todos Santos' alleged Eagles connection has been the Eagles' persistent efforts to quash it. "No Eagle has ever set foot in that hotel," says the
band's manager, Irving Azoff. He recently directed a copyright attorney to sue eBay for letting a Cabo San Lucas real-estate agent use its portal to
solicit bids. The item was pulled after eBay received a cease-and-desist order. Yet, while the group frequently sues to stop such trademark
infringement north of the border, no further action was taken against the hotel in Todos Santos. "Our attorneys said we'd be wasting our time," says
Mr. Azoff. "It's Mexico." Mr. Henley declines to comment. Rather than a song about a specific place, the Eagles have always insisted that "Hotel
California" is about surrealism, not real estate. Band members have always maintained it was an allegory for Hollywood's pre-AIDS cocaine culture and
the moral rot of conspicuous consumption. No one in Todos Santos is sure how the legend started, nor do they care -- seeing as it's been such a boon
to local tourism. "It was all Ray's idea," insists Manuel Valdez, a rival real-estate agent who ran the Hotel California for Mr. DeGennaro from 1990
until the beginning of last year. Not so, says Mr. DeGennaro, who says it was Mr. Valdez who exploited the legend. For the 10 years he ran the Hotel
California, Mr. Valdez made the place a veritable Eagles shrine. He had Eagles music blaring from speakers in the lobby and painted Eagles song lyrics
on its walls. He sold Hotel California T-shirts and other memorabilia, stuff Mr. Valdez still peddles (with Mr. DeGennaro's consent) from the shop he
opened across the street when the hotel closed, right next to his Tequila's Sunrise restaurant. Last year, Mr. Valdez added a second Hotel California
souvenir shop at the Los Cabos airport.
From Don Henley (Eagles drummer/vocalist)
Word-of-mouth and bus excursions from Los Cabos still bring plenty of pilgrims to the shuttered hotel. "Hardly a day goes by without some kid wanting
to have his picture taken in front," says Elena Moreno, another local real-estate agent. Though she doesn't endorse the story of Mr. Henley's stay,
she won't dismiss it, either. Ms. Moreno, who is showing the property for the owner, only allows that the hotel's Don Henley link is "controversial.
"If location is the key to real estate, it also explains why this cross-border legend refuses to go away. Besides its unspoiled beaches, Todos Santos
boasts one of the Baja peninsula's best locations, on the coastal highway no more than an hour's drive from two international airports. Combined,
nearly a million U.S. tourists fly into either Los Cabos or La Paz each year. Despite last year's headlines of gringo vacationers losing their beach
homes in Baja, plenty of people still hunger to get in on the ground floor of a good investment. "I describe Todos Santos as just like Santa Fe, New
Mexico, before it got yuppified," says Keenan Werner, a Los Angeles-based real-estate promoter who's been showing the Hotel California to investors
looking to develop Baja's next "unspoiled" destination. Few seem troubled by the ersatz folklore. Some here accept it as the inevitable by-product of
the misunderstanding between distant neighbours. In this case, it's a legend propelled by a generation of backpackers, most likely
tequila-and-drug-laced themselves. But the story's taken on a life, and now a price, of its own. "A million dollars? No way, not without the song,"
scoffs John Ambrose, a broker with the Maya Roca real-estate agency. "Then again, I don't tell people there isn't any Santa Claus."
Of course, anyone who owns property in Todos Santos stands to profit from the hotel's sale, since the hefty price tag could raise property values.
Paula Columbo, a transplanted New York model, says she'd love to see the hotel she calls a "white elephant" reopened, especially since it sits a
stone's throw from her elegant Italian restaurant. But she draws the line at misrepresentation. "Live and let live," she says. "Just don't ask me to
lie for you."
Even Mr. DeGennaro hedges on the Henley connection. "We're really not sure how true it is," he admits. In any case, he's had several offers for his
hotel at the asking price, he says, adding that he would've sealed a deal by now if not for the crash in Internet stocks. One dot-com entrepreneur
even gave him a down payment before backing out in the wake of the NASDAQ sell-off, he says. That?s half right, says Walter Cruttenden, the buyer
nearly hooked by Mr. DeGennaro. The founder of online-investment firm E*Offering made a down payment on the hotel, which he had hoped to refurbish
after learning one of his idols, Mr. Henley, slept there. "The manager even showed us the room where he lived," recalls Mr. Cruttenden, whose latest
venture is a company called NetChemistry. "We were under the impression the Eagles had written the song there and came very close to a deal. But
there's surely another forty something out there on that dark information superhighway, cool wind blowing through his thinning hair. He can check in
any time he likes, as long as he believes. Why, even Mr. Cruttenden has no hard feelings. "Todos Santos is a magical place," he says. "So what if the
Eagles never wrote that song there? They should have."
The Mission Bell
Did the Eagles ever come to Todos Santos? Did Don Henley write the song while staying at the Hotel California in Todos Santos, during the hippie
heyday of the late 1960's and early 1970's?
Golden Cactus Gallery, Cabo San Lucas Sometime in the mid to late 1980's, the word got out that Todos Santos was home to "the" Hotel California made
famous by the Eagles' song in the 1970's. In the 1990's, the rumour had reached "hipper" journalists in the US and the first articles started
appearing in major newspapers, like the Detroit Free Press article in 1996. As other journalists heard of the rumour, momentum increased and the story
soon became a full fledged urban legend. New writers used the original articles to justify and support their conclusions. Journalists would come to
Todos Santos and do "research", but they already knew what they wanted to write and so they sought out people who would verify what they had already
accepted as fact. No real investigative reporting ever occurred.
The then manager of the Hotel California was routinely interviewed, supporting and encouraging the legend, even as he was selling souvenirs by the
truckload, making a quick peso off the urban legend he helped to perpetuate. Through the wonder of digital magic, you can even find photos of the
Eagles seemingly standing in front of the hotel here in Todos Santos. The souvenir shirts say "Hotel California, since 1928." That claim remains
unverified. Gene Kira in "The Unforgettable Sea of Cortez" writes that in 1952, "Hotel California opened in Todos Santos by Antonio 'El Chino'
Tobasco." Was that when the hotel was built? Or did the building become a hotel in 1952?
In a Feb 2002 email, Gene states that although his notes are in storage, he remembers that the building did exist before it became the hotel and that
"El Chino" used to serve Chinese food in his restaurant at this location and would publicize the meals by way of loud tinny speakers mounted on the
roof. Gene promises more details when he finally unpacks his reference material in the future.
The hotel has had different names, that much is certain. Some say it was the Hotel California for a long time and then, in the late 70's early 80's,
the Hotel Mission Todos Santos and then the Hotel California once again. Professor Nestor, of the Centro Cultural, used to have on display, a very old
black and white photo of the hotel when it was called the Mission. Unfortunately the photo wasn't dated and it is no longer on display. A man in town
claims to have started the rumour that became legend, in the early 80's - and for purely selfish reasons. He says the town was so unknown, so lacking
in tourists or business that he felt compelled to do something to stir things up. He was in the real estate business and there weren't any buyers
around to sell to. So he says he dreamed the "Eagles" thing up right out of thin air. There weren't many takers for an urban legend either, but by the
time the hotel's infamous ex-manager signed his 10-year lease in the late 80's, the legend had begun to grow. And this opportunistic manager had no
qualms about furthering its reach. He told anyone who would listen that this indeed was the HOTEL CALIFORNIA. That the Eagles had stayed there. That
Don Henley had written the song right here, while renting a room for $2/night, sleeping in a hammock. He knew because he claimed he had been here. And
to further the effect, he blared the song over his barroom stereo into the streets. Why it had to be true, didn't it?
Todos Santos grew. A fine Italian restaurant opened and attracted attention and visitors from Cabo San Lucas. A steady stream of tourists found Todos
Santos. And the urban legend found new currency. Finally that Detroit Free Press story in 1996 and legitimacy! Then more reporters were scurrying
about looking for the "truth" or so they said. Momentum was building. In 1997, travel writer Joe Cummings became intrigued with the legend. He talked
to everyone he could and decided that the stories just didn't seem right. He sent a fax to Don Henley and asked about the hotel in Todos Santos and
the rumours that he and/or the band had been here and possibly even written the song here. To Joe's surprise, Don Henley immediately returned his fax
and stated that "I can tell you unequivocally that neither myself nor any of the other band members have had any sort of association - business or
pleasure - with that establishment." Based on his own research and this fax, Joe wrote "Hotel Where" which was later published in the March 2000 issue
of El Calendario de Todos Santos, the local English language magazine.
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
– Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
We know we must go back if we live, and we don`t know why.
– John Steinbeck, Log from the Sea of Cortez
Affordable Domain Name Registration/Management & cPanel Web Hosting:
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Bob and Susan
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Kind'a like this board....
You can check in but you can NEVER leave
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Barney
Junior Nomad
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Hotel California; The song... Is the state known buy the same name.
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David K
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Lower California Guidebook c1962
Page 109: "... Travelers may spend the night at Hotel California (III), which has a bar, restaurant, and gasoline pump."
III= 25 to 50 pesos per person, meals included. or 5 to 15 pesos, bed or room without meals. Peso was 8 cents at the time of printing. So: $2 to $4 US
with meals, $0.40 to $1.20 US without.
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elgatoloco
Ultra Nomad
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Location: Yes
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http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/hotel.htm
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Cameron
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Posts: 117
Registered: 10-12-2004
Location: Todos Santos / Seattle WA
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Hotel California - New Ownership
For those Nomads who haven't had a chance to stop in Todos Santos in the past year or two, the Hotel California has been remodeled, and as of late
2002, is open for business again.
The new owner has preserved most of the old building, and decorated the public spaces in soft, warm colors with Chihuly-esque glass scuplture and
Mexican artwork from the Mainland.
Since they've reopened, I've eaten there several times, and some friends of mine had a Wedding Reception there last spring. The meals I've had there
have suffered a little from inconsistency, but generally speaking, have been very good.
The Hotel's main strength though, has got to be it's atmosphere. Please forgive me here, as I'm not an architect, an art student, or an interior
designer, but the place looks just amazing now, and has got to be one of the most romantic spots in Mexico. For years the shutters were drawn tight,
the doors boarded up, and it was home only to the mice leaving their phantom trails in the dust on the floors, and the bats flitting in and out of the
holes in the roof. Now warm, welcoming lights, the sound of laughter and soft music pour from the windows at night once again. As you walk by, you can
see into the kitchen and smell what's cooking, and it almost always makes me hungry, even if I've just eaten!
The camera-wielding, Eagles-seeking crowd still shows up daily, running back and forth across the street, cameras pressed tightly to their faces,
trying to focus on their sunburnt friends or family posing in front of the "Hotel California" sign. Every once in a while one gets clipped by a
passing car, as more often than not they're too busy taking pictures to take notice of the oncoming traffic, but it usually only results in a few
bruises and some embarassment. The place across the street ("Tequila Sunrise") still pitches all kinds of Eagles/Hotel California stuff, perpetuating
the myth of the tie between the two.
If you're in the area, you should try to stop in, even if it's only for a Margarita or two. It really is a beautiful, romantic place, (Anybody
thinking of proposing soon?) and if nothing else, you can tell your friends, "...Hotel California? Sure, I've been there..." and keep them entertained
for a while as you tell them what you found at the end of that particular dark desert highway.
Hasta luego, Nomads... Cameron
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Marie-Rose
Senior Nomad
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Thanks Cameron
I told my husband (last night) that Hotel California was for sale!! We were both quite surprised as we also spent some lovely evenings there last
spring. We are in total agreement about the atmosphere...especially in the evening!! The new owner did a fabulous job. We heard that he is also
planning some condo's next door
We had friends who were at the wedding last spring. Did you have the pleasure of being at the wedding the day before at La Canada del Diablo??
We will hopefully cross paths...we just bought a piece of property in Todos (Casa Loma) and have met many new friends!! Counting the days till Dec
18th!!!
Maybe meet then!
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pappy
Senior Nomad
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you mean that song wasn't about camarillo state hospital( a facility for the mentally deranged,etc.)????
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Cameron
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Posts: 117
Registered: 10-12-2004
Location: Todos Santos / Seattle WA
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See You In Town...
| Quote: | Originally posted by Marie-Rose
Thanks Cameron
We will hopefully cross paths...we just bought a piece of property in Todos (Casa Loma) and have met many new friends!! Counting the days till Dec
18th!!!
Maybe meet then! |
See you in TS! Email when you arrive, and I'll see you next month... Cameron
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pappy
Senior Nomad
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i thought it was a pretty neat, romantic spot before-look forward to seeing the remodel!
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synch
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Wow JESSE,
A letter to Joe Cummings !
http://www.todossantos-baja.com/todos-santos/eagles/don-henley-fax.htm
I have the highest admiration for Joe as I have read and used his guides to Asia for a long time. In a strange way there are parallels between
Thailand and Baja so I am not surprized that he would be found in TS
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