While sitting in my morning meditation today I found myself recalling a rather odd and memorable New Year’s Eve “celebration” back in the days when my wife and I were newly weds (perhaps December 31, 1974 or 1975). We were visiting my parents near my hometown of Sonoma California during the holidays. We decided to “step out” a little bit to celebrate the new year. We didn’t really know anyone in town, so decided to just go see what we could find that might be fun.
My attention was drawn to an old resort hotel near my parent’s home – the El Verado Inn. This inn had always intrigued me as a young person partly because it was “upper class” to my way of thinking, partly because of stories that I heard, and partly because while I swam in their pool (for a nominal fee) as a youngster, they never let me look inside of the hotel. It was “fancy” around the pool area – so I assumed it would be fancy inside as well.
This hotel was in an area that was a very popular resort San Fransisco “getaway” from about 1910 to perhaps 1940. I heard that people would take boats from San Fransisco to a dock on the Sonoma Creek (this was before the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge, so it made sense to travel by boat) near the resorts. That never made sense to me since the creek is either almost dry, or a raging river most of the year. I recently read that they traveled by train to this resort area – which makes a lot more sense. Perhaps they took boats to a pier at Schellville to the south, catching the train to El Verano. This makes more sense, particularly since that pier area had acted as the primary “gateway” to the gold fields of California during gold rush days. The gold seekers would take boats to Schellville, buy their mining tools and supplies in Sonoma, continuing to the Sierra Mountains from there.
In any case, the rich and famous – reputably including mobsters such as Baby Faced Nelson and Al Capone – frequented this early 1900’s resort area. There were (and still are) many up-scale resort hotels in the area, including the El Verano Inn (originally called Parente Villa – the building that is called “El Verano Inn” is not this resort).
The local stories tell that both the Perente Villa and neighboring Paul’s Resort were pretty wild places (speakeasy style) during prohibition – accounting for the mobster clientele. The Perente Villa (called the El Verano Inn when I lived nearby) had a beautiful large swimming pool, great open gardens, a large ballroom, upscale dining, etc. Immediately across the road to the south there was a large outdoor bandstand and dancing/party grounds. While growing up I heard these rumors and stories, always wanting to “check it out.” On this particular new year’s eve they had a sign out front advertising their bar and restaurant for a good time party. My wife wasn’t all that excited to go since it looked pretty “dead” at that time in the evening.
It was indeed pretty dead. As usual, we were quite early (probably before 8:00 pm). When we walked in the only person in the place was the bartender. We sat down at the bar, ordered our drinks and started up a conversation with the bartender. It turned out to be one of those extremely rare “connections” as if with forever-close-friends types of conversations. We (perhaps only me and he – my wife was perhaps not quite so enthralled) started having one of those great discussions that just seem to dive into topics as they pop up to share stories, share interests, and just plain have a really good time. I don’t know how to properly describe these encounters, but they are about the best and most fun times that I have had in my life.
After an hour or so the bartender noticed that it was getting to be the time when customers would start to show up – so he got up, pulled the blinds shut, and locked the front doors! He explained that customers would just be a distraction. So we continued with the discussion while people would come up to the door, try to get in, knock on the door and finally leave! It was a pretty odd way to treat potential customers, but we were having a great time. After awhile my wife suggested that since there were no customers, perhaps we could get a tour of the hotel since it was clearly a high-end “period piece” that apparently hadn’t changed in decades.
The first part of the tour led us to the ballroom. It was a very large, ornate room with a large hardwood floor. Our bartender guide explained that the floor was supported on springs so that when a crowd was dancing, the floor responded and kind of “danced back.” It was designed to enhance the experience of a shared group experience, because that is just what it was doing. The really odd part about this large room was that instead of having room to dance, it was filled with perhaps 20 or more beautiful, gleaming old racing cars. I recognized some of the brand names, such as Ferrari, Alpha Romeo, Maserati as well as others that I hadn’t heard of – including one or two old open-wheeled racers. All of these cars were in immaculate condition, just sitting there ready to be admired. This area was normally closed off to customers, apparently they were a private collection.
We left the ballroom and wandered through the halls and guest rooms admiring the old zinc ceilings, 1930’s era wall paper, stunning furniture and all that came with it. It was an amazing throw back to times gone by – apparently unappreciated and largely unused any longer.
I don’t know how long we stayed that night, probably not until mid-night, but perhaps we cheered in the new year. Too many years have passed for me to have a clear recollection of that part of the evening – but the amazing conversation and tour have stuck in our mind ever since. We finally took our leave, and have never been back or followed up in any way. It remains as a separate, almost surreal, moment in time – it feels like it was perhaps one of those “twilight” adventures that Rod Serling hosted on “The Twilight Zone”. Nothing untoward, scary, or outlandish happened that night – but it is forever set off as some kind of “separate” event that is oddly disconnected from the normal flow of events.