Lake Norconian

This place is on private property. Listing for informational purposes only. Please do not visit without express permission from the land owner. The Norconian Resort Supreme is a former hotel/resort in Norco, California, built in the 1920s, largely intact after over 70 years as a naval base and prison. Originally called the "Lake Norconian Club", it opened on February 2, 1929 in this rural community, whose main businesses were poultry, rabbits, and agriculture. In 1920, after years of land speculation in the San Diego/Julian area of California, Rex Brainerd Clark (May, 1876 – Aug 31, 1955), through his North Corona Land Company, purchased 15 square miles (39 km2) of land just north of Corona. The land was a failed agricultural community known as "Orchard Heights", but Clark renamed this hilly area "Norco", based on its position North of Corona. In less than three years, Clark's engineer, "Captain" Cuthbert Gulley (April 30, 1878 – 1961) (so named for his service in World War I) laid out streets and installed pumps and reservoirs and on May 13, 1923, "Norco" held its grand opening. The resort was initially a great success, with film and sports stars of the day as regular visitors. Several films were shot at the Norconian, and it was not unusual to see Buster Keaton or Babe Ruth on the golf course (in 1938, actress Lona Andre set a new record for speed in women's golf, shooting 156 holes in 11 hours and 56 minutes). Norma Shearer shot two films at the resort and could be seen riding the trails on horseback on many occasions. Will Rogers, who also shot several films in the vicinity, regularly utilized the Norconian air field. Tragically, in 1933, famed aviator Marshall S. Boggs (who piloted the first "blind" landing made entirely using radio signals in 1931) crashed and was killed while making a routine approach to this airfield. Unfortunately, the Great Depression quickly killed the Norconian's amazing success, and by 1933 the resort was closed. Rex Clark, on a personal front, was divorced from Grace Scripps and struggling financially. Norco was in the midst of a seven-year drought, and the agricultural success of the 1920s was all but a memory. In 1935 the resort suddenly reopened, likely due to a cash infusion from Rex Clark's former wife's trust fund. The fabulous Norconian sputtered along with some tremendous landmark occasions. In 1938, Walt Disney Studios, to celebrate the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, threw a party that has become the stuff of legend. The same year MGM tossed their own party at the Norconian, and in 1940 Fox studios followed suit. During this era, Jeanette MacDonald, Joan Crawford, Basil Rathbone, Stan Laurel and other stars regularly visited the Norconian, as did sports stars Lou Nova (boxer), Helen Wills (tennis), local star Jess Hill (USC coach and star, New York Yankees) and the 'ol Pitt football team of 1935. In September–October 1941, the United States Navy purchased the resort, and on December 8, 1941, the day after Pearl Harbor, the resort was commissioned the United States Naval Hospital in Corona (the hospital was actually in the town of Norco, but the post office was Corona-based, hence the name). The first patients arrived from the Pearl Harbor attack and were housed and treated in the luxurious rooms of the former resort. The facility was quickly altered and expanded to include isolation wards (the hospital was the designated national tubercular and malaria treatment center for the United States Navy as well as the Naval Pacific Coast Polio facility), a 200,000 sq ft (19,000 m2) ward addition (which was christened by Eleanor Roosevelt), a marvelous chapel, complete theater, gymnasium (where wheelchair basketball was born on the wheels of "The Rolling Devils"), a nurses quarters, corpsman quarters, etc. At the hospital's peak (1945) over 5000 patients were being treated. Many firsts occurred at the hospital; first use of penicillin for tubercular patients, first air transportation of Naval patients across the United States with final destination in Norco, first uses of polio vaccine outside of Pittsburgh, first hand-held X-ray machines, as well as advances in prosthetic devices and occupational therapy. Actress Kay Francis was in charge of hospital morale, and she saw to it that many of the stars who frequented the resort now entertained the patients; including The Three Stooges, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, Jack Benny, Harry James, Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Kay Kyser, James Cagney, Clark Gable and dozens of others. In 2000, nineteen structures, buildings and features were deemed worthy to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Currently, the Lake Norconian Club Foundation is working to expand the national register to include US Naval Hospital buildings erected between 1941–1957 and to elevate the entire Lake Norconian Club Historic District to National Landmark status. Further, representatives of the National Trust have visited the site, and there is hope that the former Norconian Clubhouse will be included on the National Trust's 11 Most Endangered buildings list for 2008-2009. Media nationwide has covered the tragic fate of this majestic building, and the hope is it will be saved before it is too late. In 2004, the main clubhouse was deemed seismically unfit and abandoned. Officially, the state of California has determined to allow one of the great examples of Mission Revival Style architecture to crumble by neglect. The 200,000-square-foot (19,000 m2) building sits behind twenty-foot-high rotting fences. Inside, priceless chandeliers hang from stunning, handpainted ceilings; Catalina floor tile has feral cat droppings and water slowly destroys this one-of-a-kind building.