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Married to European royalty twice before, Barbara Hutton, heiress to the immense Woolworth fortune, hoped that the third time would be a charm when she tied the knot with movie star Cary Grant in July 1942 at Lake Arrowhead. The wedding was a secret and kept so by taking place at the very exclusive locale. There was a well-worn path from Palm Springs to Lake Arrowhead as it made for a natural summer getaway for desert residents, including “Cash and Cary.”
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The lake was man-made. In 1891, Adolph Koebig and Adolph Wood began buying up timberland in Little Bear Valley on behalf of a Cincinnati syndicate headed by millionaire James Mooney and manufacturer James N. Gamble of Procter & Gamble. Gamble, son of the company’s founder, is credited with developing Ivory soap and was also the father of David B. Gamble, for whom architects Greene & Greene designed a very beautiful craftsman house in Pasadena.
The men formed the Arrowhead Reservoir Company and planned to dam Little Bear Valley and pipe water down the mountain to irrigate citrus groves in the San Bernardino Valley. Citrus was very big business in the late 19th century and was critical to the very development of California itself.
Construction on the dam began in 1893. The project took two decades, due to complicated engineering, the setback caused by Mooney’s death and probate, and an extended legal dispute. The project did not work out as intended.
Ranchers on the desert side of the mountains sued to stop the diversion of water. After much travail, the San Bernardino Superior Court ruled in favor of the ranchers, ending any commercial prospects.
By the time of the decision, the dam was substantially complete, the lake already formed, but the planned 60-mile network of canals and tunnels was abandoned. The 22-year effort to sell mountain water to the valley was over, and the company’s water rights were sold to a new entity, the Arrowhead Lake Company.
A Los Angeles syndicate including J.B. Van Nuys, of the eponymous neighborhood, and attorney John O’Melveny bought some 4,800 acres in 1920 and renamed it Lake Arrowhead, after the distinctive rock formation scarring the mountainside.
With the completion of the dam, the new company built a Norman-style village with a dance pavilion, outdoor movie theater, restaurant, beach, bathhouses, and a nine-hole golf course on the shore. The resort was marketed as the “Swiss Alps of Southern California.” Indeed, the views were similar.
Three hotels opened in the village, the Arlington Lodge, the Village Inn, and the North Shore Tavern. The Tavern was charmingly only accessible by boat. Many hotel workers and laborers escaped the heat of the Palm Springs desert to work the summer season at Lake Arrowhead, migrating down the mountain just in time to escape the snow and spend the winter in sunshine. Each summer, as the temperature in the desert climbed, they would make the reverse trip to the pine-scented surroundings of the gracious lake.
For some years, Nellie Coffman, along with her two sons, George Roberson and Earl Coffman, managed the Village Inn and North Shore Tavern. They also relocated many of their employees up to the lake resort. Tony Burke, El Mirador Hotel publicist who snapped the picture of Elsa and Albert Einstein below its tower, also made the seasonal switch between the lake and the desert.
By the mid-1920s in summertime, the lake had a regular Hollywood visitors used to wintering in Palm Springs. Clark Gable, Errol Flynn, Jean Harlow, Marilyn Monroe, Rock Hudson, Lucille Ball, and Bing Crosby all made the trek up the winding mountain road. Most stars stayed at the hotels. Some bought or built houses on the lake.
And Grant and Hutton selected the spot for their clandestine wedding, making an international news splash.
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An exceptionally beautiful spot on the lake was owned by aviation pioneer and inventor Thomas F. Hamilton. Founder of the Hamilton Standard Company, he introduced one of the earliest all-metal aircraft with James McDonnell, who would found his own company. Hamilton also introduced and produced Frank Caldwell’s revolutionary variable pitch propeller, built the iconic Burbank airport, helped William Boeing start his business, and was a driving force in creating the Lake Arrowhead Yacht Club, serving as the Commodore in 1939.
Hamilton owned 36 acres on a private promontory with an extensive shoreline which was subdivided in 1961 into 103 home sites, appropriately named Hamiltair. His original 1936 home, known as the Boathouse, and associated 1940 Gatehouse, were designed by master architect Paul Revere Williams in a Norman or French Country cottage style that is so charming as to seem a realized fairytale.
Williams was then hired in 1939 to design the Arrowhead Springs Hotel with famous Southland architect Gordon Kaufmann in the foothills of the mountain. Their client was a consortium of Hollywood stars and businessmen, including Jay Paley, Joseph Schenck, Constance Bennett, Claudette Colbert, Darryl Zanuck and Al Jolson. The movie folk had purchased the resort in 1938 for $800,000 with plans to develop the property as equivalent to elite European health spas.
According to the Paul Williams Project, shortly after their purchase a fire destroyed the original building necessitating Williams ‘and Kaufmann’s design of a “$1.5 million replacement, a 69-room hotel described in a 1940 Time magazine article as ‘late Californian with a Southern Georgian trace.’ Half of the rooms opened onto private balconies, and through careful architectural design occupants on one deck could not see occupants on the adjoining deck. Paley and Schenck wanted the architects to preserve the traditions of the original spa but add a more modern twist. Their version of the perfect California healthy get-away included facilities for mud baths, ski slides, steam caves, and scores of deck chairs as well as bars, all for the minimum rate of $13 a day (on the) American plan.”
New York interior designer “Dorothy Draper … was hired to create the complete look for the resort from the drapes of chintz and tweed to the uniforms of the staff as well as small items such as toothpicks and swizzle sticks … Her job was to work with Williams and Kaufmann to reinvent the Arrowhead as a camera-ready fantasy where American chic society vacationed to see and be seen.”
Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Lucille Ball, Spencer Tracy, Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Loretta Young regularly used the resort’s natural steam caves, mud baths, and bungalows. They were also regular visitors to the desert. The scallop-edged swimming pool was enjoyed by the likes of George Gershwin, Johnny Weissmuller and Esther Williams.
Local newspapers reported on the sensational wedding of Elizabeth Taylor and Conrad “Nicky” Hilton in 1950 trumpeting a week-long honeymoon stay in the 6th floor penthouse suite. But it’s unclear if they actually stayed or if the story was manufactured to pique public interest as the Arrowhead Lake wedding of Hutton and Grant had done years earlier.
The advent of easy air travel soon caused the fancy crowds to choose exotic holidays in Hawaii or Mexico rather than the once-popular San Bernardino mountains. The Arrowhead Springs Hotel closed permanently in 1956.
Tracy Conrad is president of the Palm Springs Historical Society. The Thanks for the Memories column appears Sundays in The Desert Sun. Write to her at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: The glamorous history of Lake Arrowhead, a classic California summer getaway
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Reporting by Tracy Conrad, Special to The Desert Sun / Palm Springs Desert Sun
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This story was originally published July 26, 2026 at 7:00 AM.