It was a escape for some of the stars of the big screen, but Interstate 8 changed all that. Then it was rebuilt.
She found a Hollywood-getaway ghost town in need of a saviour, and what she did next created one of California’s best-kept secrets
Back in 2020, an interior designer from San Diego was on a road trip with her boyfriend along California’s Old Highway 80.
Up in the mountains near the Mexican border, they passed a rundown motel in Jacumba and something about it caught her eye: a pink façade that looked both antique and like something from a bygone day. “I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I couldn’t stop talking about it,” she told Travel & Leisure. “I knew there was something bigger happening, and that it was a part of my life in some way.”
Jacumba Hot Springs with a population of 900, lies about 70 miles east of San Diego and was originally created in the 1920s.
In its heyday, the hotel and its mineral waters became a popular getaway for Hollywood stars like Marlene Dietrich and Clark Gable. But that all changed in the 1960s, when Interstate 8 was constructed, bypassing the town as tourism dried up, and Jacumba fell on hard times.
Strukel eventually bought the motel which came with another series of properties and her friends turned business partners, Corbin Winters, an interior designer, and Jeff Osborne, a real estate investor put themselves to work.
The hotel now boasts 20 rooms and two pools filled by natural spring waters with the hotel’s success spurring other businesses in the town.
Boosted by the success, the three friends from San Diego have plans for more: new restaurants, new stores, maybe a recording studio. “We love the people of this community,” Strukel told me. “They’re like family now. We want everybody to feel really good and welcomed.”
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