Brookdale, CA

Brookdale sits in a bend of the valley, with Ben Lomond on one side and Boulder Creek on the other and Highway 9 as its only through road. The place started as a campground. Judge James Harvey Logan, better known for creating the loganberry, turned a lumber-mill site into a creekside campground resort around 1900, and the post office that put the Brookdale name on the map opened in 1902. The lodge later turned a logging town into a destination. It was a Hollywood hangout in the 1950s, and the Brook Room, with a stream flowing through the dining room, was the draw. Fires in 1956, 1982 and 2005 took their toll, the property sat abandoned for a few years, and new owners reopened it in 2017. Away from the lodge, the community stays small and spread out. Side streets leave the highway to climb wooded slopes or follow the creek, and the homes mix cabins and cottages with larger houses set well back among the trees. Because the valley towns share one road, Brookdale tends to feel like part of a continuous stretch of forest more than a separate center. Dinner out usually means a short hop along the highway. Aroma serves Italian food and holds the fine-dining reputation in this part of the valley, while Corazon De Leon, just up the road in Ben Lomond, cooks Mexican food from Guanajuato. Both appear on the valley restaurant lists compiled by local visitor guides. The community works as the connecting stretch between its busier neighbors. Boulder Creek, with its main street, lies to the north, and Ben Lomond, with its bakeries and library, lies to the south. Anyone shopping for groceries or services heads to a neighboring town, with Ben Lomond and Boulder Creek each offering a market, and Santa Cruz for anything larger. That reliance on the car and on one road is the price of the setting, and in return the forest begins at the back fence.