Melissa, Jeff, and their business partners own 80% of the commercial and residential properties in town, including the Downtown shuttered businesses.

Entering Jacumba Hot Springs — a “census designated place” in the high desert just north of the Mexican border some 70 miles east of San Diego proper — is like stepping into a Steinbeck novel, where the dreams may have gone to dust but something stubborn and vital endures, despite the rust and ruin. Something seductive even, beckoning a certain sort of person — okay, me — to explore its faded glories and even imagine their return.

And it does take some imagining: when I amble into town on an overcast Monday, a dead coyote is slumped on the shoulder before the exit ramp. While I coast down old Highway 80, a tumbleweed rolls languidly in front of my car. A falcon circles above, its wings spread wide as it soars through the chilly mountain air. I slip past homes with boarded-up windows, a dilapidated trailer park, and a group of border patrol agents. Clad in armored vests, they’re trudging through a field, guided by a dog who is sniffing for — drugs? Illegal border crossers? Who knows?

Photographs by Siobhan Braun

I pass Jacumba’s downtown strip. The businesses are shuttered, and have been for years. The only “Open” sign is on the Mountain Sage Market. The town is quiet. Apart from the border patrol, the only person I see on the street is a man on a bicycle, a cigarette clenched between his lips, dragging a wagon hooked onto the frame of his back wheel. A blanket covers its contents. He watches as I park in front of the market. I am early; I need to kill time before I drive down the road, past the library, toward the border fence, and out to the baseball diamond where I will join local volunteers in handing out food through Feeding San Diego. I am happy to give some small thing back to this community in return for what it has given me.

This is my third visit in a month, and each one has brought a new discovery. There is magic here; I know there is, because I’m not the only one who has fallen under its spell. Back in early October, I drove out here to meet with the new owners of the Jacumba Hot Springs Hotel. One of them, Melissa Strukel, told me that after taking a day trip out here during peak covid, she fell in love with it. She could not get it out of her mind, so much so that today, she and her business partners own 80% of the commercial and residential properties in town.

A new beginning?

In the late ’20s and early ’30s, Jacumba was a tourist destination, thanks largely to its famed healing water: Hollywood types drove down to sit in the town’s hot springs. The bathhouse offered apartments, pools, and a hydrotherapy clinic. Today, residents are among the poorest in San Diego County; the average income is $17,589. The Wagon Wheel Trailer Park in the middle of town is rumored to have the lowest rent anywhere in San Diego County. There is no mail carrier or police station. The town’s only school was shuttered a few years ago. And 75% of our city’s violent sexual predators have been relocated here. But Strukel and fellow dreamer Jeff Osbourne, together with their business partner, Corbin Winters, aren’t daunted by all that. They are looking beyond the present and toward a future that looks more like the glorious past. They want to turn Jacumba Hot Springs into a destination, like Palm Springs. As Osbourne puts it when we meet up, “I want this to be a place that people discover and never forget for the rest of their lives. It is going to be a place that impacts people. It is going to be somewhere people tell their friends that it was almost like a mirage that they ran into in the middle of the desert.” Like I said, magic.

For her part, Strukel had long dreamt of opening a small hotel, or a retreat center. Then she found Jacumba. (She pronounces it “ha-coom-ba,” while I had always thought it was “ja-cum-ba.”) After that, she says, “I knew that I needed to get ahold of the people who I had been dreaming about doing something like this with. I reached out to Jeff and Corbin. Jeff came down from Fresno. It was a lot to take in. We quickly realized that we just had to do it. We all knew we had to move to Jacumba. And this had to become our home.” She smiles at Jeff as she says this. So far, their holdings include the Jacumba Hot Springs Spa hotel, the bathhouse, numerous downtown storefronts, Lake Jacumba, some residential property, and acreage on the southern side of town — much of it purchased from Dave Landman, a local eccentric, entrepreneur, and long-time owner and resident of Jacumba’s nudist colony. Landman purchased the spa, bathhouse, and other parcels for $1.5 million in 2012; he had big plans for revitalizing the community. Those plans never reached fruition. “I did not meet Dave when I first came out,” recalls Strukel. “I had no knowledge of the owners. I had no knowledge of any of it. I was just drawn to [the property]. When I found out that the resort had gone up for sale, I traveled back out here. A realtor showed me the hotel, and proceeded to tell me that it wasn’t just the hotel that was for sale, it was essentially 80% of the town.”

Downtown shuttered businesses owned by Jeff and Melissa

I’m here for a tour of the future, beginning with the spa. You can tell it was once a sight to behold, but now, the roof is long gone, the interior is covered with graffiti, and weeds sprout triumphantly through cracks in the concrete. But Strukel is giddy. “We love this building so much. It is one of our favorite properties we own. These iron gates” — she points up at the hardware on the windows — “are not original. We had them made in Marrakesh. We want it to look like they were always there. We see this as [becoming] the plaza of town, where we can have music, art shows, and weddings.” Past the spa is Jacumba Lake. In 2020, it was nearly dry and choked with trash. But the dreamers have done more than dream: as I step onto the white quartz sand of the lakeshore, I am awed into silence by the beauty of the spot. Palm trees line the shore. Kayaks bob in the sparkling water. A rope swing dangles from a tree branch. It looks like the future is coming soon.

Art and commerce

On a warm Saturday morning, I drive east to explore present-day Jacumba with my friends Kelly and Cori. Our first stop is The Institute of Perception, off Railroad Street. (The property is visible from the lake, and when we met, Osbourne told me that the couple who live here refer to themselves as the town’s warlocks. More magic?)

Art installations sprinkle the property. A bright white pyramid stands out against the desert backdrop. Owners Kirk and Noor are in Mexico, but they’ve agreed to give me a Face Time tour of their property. When I call, I smile at Noor’s wild electric-blue hair and Kirk’s Rip Van Winkle beard. Noor explains that they bought the land — which included an abandoned railroad warehouse — in the late ’90s, as a haven for the arts. They encourage people to use the property for vision walks, and invite both hikers and artists to use the space for meditation. The rehabilitated warehouse serves as artist’s space and Airbnb. “We thought it was important to preserve this land and keep it a wild space out in East County,” says Kirk. “This land has been used by Shamans and tribes.”

The Institute of Perception butts up against Jacumba’s old Train Depot. Abandoned trains litter the landscape. Kirk explains that the colorful graffitied one sitting on their property was the inspiration and cover art for a recent Stephen King novel.

“Did you get to meet him?’ I ask.

Kurt shrugs.

In the late ’20s and early ’30s, Jacumba was a tourist destination, thanks largely to its famed healing water: Hollywood types drove down to sit in the town’s hot springs. The bathhouse offered apartments, pools, and a hydrotherapy clinic.

As I explore, I spot a group of old tires lined up in a row, creating an optical river. Further on, rocks form a labyrinth. There are murals, sculptures, and concrete mineral baths set up in a compass formation. Kirk encourages me to step inside their echo chamber made from a discarded old water heater. The more I wander, the more I discover. I am continuously shouting to Cori and Kelly, “Come check this out!” but they are not under the spell. Noor and Kirk, on the other hand, are getting a kick out of my enthusiasm. “I wish we were there to let you into the warehouse and Pyramid,” Noor says. When I finally hang up with the Warlocks, I turn to Cori and ask, “Isn’t this place the coolest?” She wrinkles her nose in response.

We move on to the monthly Jacumba Bazaar at the old bathhouse. It’s one of Jeff and Melissa’s community events. Artists display original work and vendors sell vintage clothing and knick-knacks. A leather-faced woman wearing a turquoise choker tempts me with a vintage Ralph Lauren vest, but it costs $50. A bearded old man in dirty jeans uncovers a small blue marble in the dust near my feet. He wipes it off with his t-shirt and hands it to me.

“For good luck,” he says with a wink.

I ask if he lives in town. He nods, “Just down the road. I am an artist.” He pulls out his cell phone and shows me photographs of his paintings.

“They are beautiful,” I say, earnestly. “Do you sell them?”

Deep smile lines form around his mouth. “I haven’t sold one in a long time, but I plan on doing a show next year when they open the spa,” he says optimistically.

By now, I am starting to get hungry, and there are a handful of other spots I want to visit before the sun sets. We head next door to the Mountain Sage Market for a couple of waters. Two old guys in faded jeans and flannels loiter near the entrance. A group of teenagers head for the chip aisle. They are barefoot. I think of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and smile.

Kip the cashier rings us up. I ask how long he has lived in Jacumba.

Sam Schultz on desert tower property: “I spend every Monday morning feeding people in this town. We feed up to 150 people and there are only about 500 residents that live here. If you want to see the real Jacumba, show up for that.”

“I have been here about 3½ years. I worked in the post office for about two years before this. [My wife and I] lived in San Diego for 30 years, but our business went bad. We had to move to Imperial Valley. Then, we wound up out here to escape El Centro.”

“Did anything surprise you about the community out here?”

Kip nods, “You know, Jacumba has a reputation for having a lot of eccentric people and a reputation for…”

Before he can finish his sentence, one of the old guys at the door shouts: “A reputation for pedophiles!”

Kip laughs sheepishly and explains, “Jacumba is a dumping ground for all the sexual predators in San Diego. They are trying to stick another one out here. I knew them all from my time at the Post Office. But they don’t come in here. They need to travel with their handlers. They can’t come in by themselves, because they are pedophiles.”

I comment on how unfortunate that must be for the locals in town.

Kip shrugs. “Well, that is just how it is. Where else are they gonna put ’em’? You get a cross section of a lot of mentally ill people out here.”

I thank Kip, and as we head out the door. I ask one of the old guys if there is anywhere to eat in town.

“The only restaurant is at the nudist resort across town,” one says with a cackle.

While I put DeAnza Springs Resort’s address into my GPS, Cori asks, “They have to wear clothes to make the food, right?”

I shrug.

Naked lunch

The road to the resort is rough; it’s not a place you’re likely to visit by accident. In 2020, a group of new investors bought the resort from Dave Landman around the same time Strukel, Osbourne, and Winters purchased their own real estate holdings from him. According to folks in town, the new owners are young and hip. They host events in an effort to lure people in: a nude 5K, Nudestock (like Woodstock, only naked), and wellness retreats. As a result, the average age of the residents has dropped a bit. But the place itself shows its age: it looks like a KOA campground. We spot a community building with a pool out back and figure the restaurant must be inside.

When we enter, we find that the bartender is shirtless, but to Cori’s relief, he is wearing pants. A sign on the wall advertises an $8 lunch special: chips, a draft beer, and a wiener. The bartender’s name is Joshua Dorval. “One of the owners, Fernando, called me up and asked if I wanted a bartending gig in Jacumba,” he says. “He gave me the address, no information. I showed up out here, rolled through the gates, and I saw an older gentleman walking around nude. I actually pulled over to look up the non-emergency sheriff’s line because I was worried about him. Thankfully, I did not have cell service. So, I headed towards the office. I saw another nude person, and another, and another. I was just like, “Oh, my God, what is happening?’ But I have been here about a year now, and I love it.”

I have taken to imitating Strukel’s use of “ha-coom-ba,” but Dorval laughs at my pronunciation. “That is not how you say it. Those people, the owners of the Hot Springs, all say it that way, but I am 99% sure that the way I have said it, growing up out here my whole life, is the right way. They just want it to sound fancy.”

Cori interrupts our conversation to ask a more pressing question: “Do you ever get used to the nudity?”

Concrete mineral bath at the The Institute of Perception.

He laughs, and admits that it takes a minute. He advises us to maintain eye contact and not look below the neck. The advice proves difficult. There are naked people everywhere. I try to keep my eyes on my plate, but the old guy bending over one of the pool tables wearing only a cowboy hat and boots is distracting. He peacocks around the table on full display. An old guy wearing a towel demands that we join his pool tournament, and Kelly and I agree. There is a lot of bending and squatting, so I am thankful for the towel.

Co-owner Fernando comes out from his office to greet us. He is fully clothed. Cori wants to know about the hygiene in the bar: “Are we siting on chairs that bare butts have sat on?”

Fernando shakes his head. “You won’t find anyone sitting on a chair unless they have a towel. On your first visit here, we will tell you a few rules: 1. Be kind. 2. No getting drunk and stupid. 3. No sexual types of things. 4. We let you know to sit on a towel. If for some reason you forget, you will be reminded by a resident.” Sexual types of things? “We aren’t a sex club. We do not advertise as such. Nudity does not mean sex. We don’t allow touching or fondling in here. We do have swingers that visit. We have some here this weekend. They are nice and they promote the place. They bring a lot of people in. But they know we have boundaries here.”

Before we leave, Fernando offers to loan us his golf cart to cruise around the property. Judith in the front office gives us the keys and points out various spots we might visit. She indicates a red highlighted section on the map. “This isn’t really part of the nudist colony. It is called Nomadic. The owner — we call him Kecho — is a big shroom grower. He does wellness retreats there. He is a partner, but he is not really a part of DeAnza Springs — not the nudist part anyway. You’ll probably see him and his group out there. They do frog shots. I don’t even know what that means! Some sort of spiritual cleanse.”

When we see Kecho and his frog licking crew, we think they look like movie stars. Their hair spirals sensuously in the mountain air as if invisible fans are tousling it. “Of course, they aren’t naked!” Cori says.

If it weren’t for all the naked people, I wouldn’t mind living there. According to Fernando, campsites are only $10 a night and to live there full-time in an RV costs just $545 a month.

Kirk explains that the colorful graffitied train car sitting on their property was the inspiration and cover art for a recent Stephen King novel.

A lookout on the future

Our next stop is the Desert View Tower, a kitschy old-timey tourist destination on the far edge of town, facing the southern portion of Anza Borrego State Park. It offers caves for guests to wander through, a campsite, an Airbnb cabin, and the titular tower, which in turn offers a 360-degree view of the In-Ko-Pah mountains. Before we pull into the parking lot, we pass a junkyard of sorts: the sign reads “Coyote’s Flying Saucer Retrievals and Repair” It looks intriguing, and I have read about it in Atlas Obscura. But Cori shakes her head. “We are not going there. Nothing to see. It is not an art installation piece. Its literally trash.”

When we pull up to the tower, the sun is low enough in the sky that the boulder-covered mountains shimmer. It looks unreal. For a cool $2.25 million, the place could be mine. It has been on the market for five years; so far, no takers. Talking to the owners, brothers Ben and Sam Schultz, I learn that they hope the new resort in town might bring a bidder. Ben Schultz bought the tower for $350,000 in the early 2000s. “My dad would take us out here when I was a kid. I just loved the whole thing. In my kid imagination, it was a mysterious place. It had been up for sale for ten years when I bought it. It was falling apart. All the cool places like this that I grow up with in San Diego have been destroyed, and then an Arco goes up in its place. This is one of the few spots like this leftover from my childhood. I think whoever I sell it to will want to use it in some way. I thought about making a stipulation in the sale that whoever buys it needs to open it up one day a month free for whoever wants to go into the caves, but stipulations are hard to enforce.”

Sam adds, “We have a high price tag on it. We are selling it as a business, not residential. It’s highly unlikely that your normal businessperson would want to buy this. Then again, maybe there is someone crazy enough out there. I mean, my brother bought it. I am not saying it’s not going to happen, but it’s not a hot item. I fully foresee living here until I die,” he concludes, his voice heavy with resignation.

Fernando at DeAnza Springs Resort: “We do have swingers that visit. We have some here this weekend. They are nice and they promote the place. They bring a lot of people in. But they know we have boundaries here.”

It’s possible that the new projects in Jacumba could help attract a buyer. But even if the Desert Tower doesn’t become an Arco, things won’t stay the same. Explains Ben, “The way I look at it is, towns out here have two choices: they can either be a Walmart/Dollar Store town, or a gentrified community. There is no room for anything but that. If you really have to choose, you probably want to be on the gentrified end. It’s sad, but Jacumba will be gentrified. Jeff Osbourne is spending so much money. He owns half the houses in town. He is going to raise the rent. I mean, that is coming! I am not criticizing him, it’s just the truth.” Hearing Osbourne’s name inspires me to ask about “ja-cum-ba” vs. “ha-coom-ba.” Ben laughs. “That’s what Melissa calls it. She has lived here all of ten seconds. That is not how you say it. That is not going to stick.”

Back to the subject at hand: “[Jacumba] Lake is wonderful now. It was nasty before. When they came in, we didn’t know who the fuck they were. We were worried. But that lake — no corporate group would’ve done what they did with it. A lawyer would’ve called it a liability. All the work they did on that was for the people in town. They are sweet people. But they are also taking over. Not everyone likes that, but there is nothing they have done that has not been good for everybody in town. However, it is going to be gentrifying and it is going to push some people out.”

Sam nods his head vigorously, adding, “What Jeff and [his partners] are trying to do is actually really great. The thing is, where is that going to leave all the people that live in Jacumba now who can’t afford to live anywhere else? There isn’t anywhere for them to go. Jacumba is an urban sacrifice zone. The city spends as little on services here as they can. This is where the riffraff goes. Why do you think they have so many sexually violent predators out here? Jacumba has been this way for a long time. I spend every Monday morning feeding people in this town. We feed up to 150 people and there are only about 500 residents that live here. If you want to see the real Jacumba, show up for that.”

The real Jacumba

So here I am, three weeks later, meeting Sam Schultz behind the Jacumba library. A dozen or so volunteers — retired guys, a few gals, and a couple of young men — sit at picnic tables, waiting for the Feeding San Diego Truck to appear. Behind us, the border wall looms. To our right sits Snob Hill — formerly Knob Hill, but renamed by locals due to the many large houses that look down on the valley below. The truck pulls up; the driver unloads pallets of oranges, squash, onions, peppers, green bananas, and overripe kiwis before driving off. The men shake their heads. Old-timer Scotty Lopshire explains, “This is the first time they have done a dump and run on us. Usually, they bring tables, and everything is pre-bagged, and they stick around to take the pallets back.” An older gentleman picks up a squash and says, “Looks like this stuff didn’t fit in their dumpsters, so they brought it out here for us! Rotten onions and peppers!” The volunteers are disappointed, but shruggingly so. They seem well versed in life’s disappointments. Many of the bags of onions have mold on them.

Old Jacumba hotel sign

“If you would not buy it from a grocery store, don’t hand it out,” instructs Scotty. “Toss it to the side.” The reject pile grows steadily. At 9 am, people in cars start pulling up to collect their food. Over 100 cars come through before we finish.

I loo up at Snob Hill. “Who lives up there?”

“Jeff Osbourne bought that one,” says Scotty. “He is turning it into an Airbnb, or something. Basically, any property that comes on the market, they buy it.”

An older guy with a ponytail says, “They are doing a really good job [at the spa]. But that is not ever going to be a place for locals to hang out at. They spent too much money on it. It will be too expensive. But, I heard that they are talking about turning Jays [an out of business restaurant in town] into a local hangout. That would be cool!”

Pipes in Sam, “They have been really great about hiring locals to work there.”

I ask the group if they think their home values with rise once the spa opens. They look at each other and shrug. Scotty says, “I moved here in 2007 because of the bad economy in town. I lived in Lakeside at that time. I came out here, and I have been here ever since. I ended up buying the house that I was in and the lot next door for $40,000. That’s not even a down payment in town. And I’ve got room! But I can’t move back to town. Even with the housing properties the highest they have ever been here. I got an offer on my property for $330,000. Even if I tried to move out of state, I can’t get much with that. So, I am just going to have to stay here, I guess.”

Scotty’s biggest silver lining in moving to Jacumba was meeting his wife, Sammie. “Sammie has been here forever!” he says, pointing to his wife as she places a box in the back of a truck. “She has been here longer than anyone else that is still coherent!” It was 1968 when Sammie Lopshire stepped off a Greyhound bus from Texas, children in tow, and into Jacumba. The ground was covered in a soft blanket of snow. She was reuniting with her then husband, who worked for the railroad. They were given an old trolley car to call home. They lived in it for a couple of years, squirreling away money to buy a home of their own. Then the railroad failed and the workers disappeared, but Sammie remained. In her 54 years in Jacumba, she has seen various investors attempt to recapture the place’s glory days. Asked how she feels about the hotel and other properties being renovated by new investors, she says, “Everything here pretty much stays the same.”

Sky’s the limit

It’s a frosty 50 degrees in Jacumba Hot Springs. I’ve driven down for the candlelight concert at the old bathhouse featuring musician Deacon Dimes. In front of Mountain Sage Market, a group of locals smoke cigarettes. They watch as visitors arrive from out of town for tonight’s concert; it’s as if they’re observing a movie. Two women, one in a floor-length white fur coat and the other in a vintage ‘70s leather jacket, pose for a photo outside a renovated bungalow across the street.

Palm trees planted at Lake by Melissa, Jeff, and Corbin

Construction is progressing at the spa. The renovations offer an eclectic mash-up of decades past: the 1970s meets decadent Morocco. The bar is dark and dreamy, painted in heavy romantic tones; its walls are adorned with vintage nudes. Even halfway done, everything looks luxurious. I trudge past the bungalow, behind the bathhouse, and out toward Jacumba Lake. Passing one of the natural hot springs, I remove a shoe and dip a toe in the water. A dozen frogs make room, some leaping into the tall grass. A middle-aged woman is immersed in the spring. She smiles at me, her teeth bright white. Steam rises off her body. “It’s wonderful in here,” she says, and I wish I had brought my suit.

The bathhouse is drenched in candlelight. Wooden chairs with woven seats face a makeshift stage. A southwestern tapestry hangs on the wall, surrounded by the old graffiti. I watch as guests file in. A group of locals sit one row in front of me. I ask one of them about the crowd: how many are from here in town. He scans the room. “About 50% or so. I like going to these shows. It’s fun to watch the artists because they will look up at the stars and just get lost,” he says dreamily. I look up; hundreds of stars sprinkle the sky. It gives me goosebumps. I have been to concerts in eclectic spots before, but nothing quite like this roofless, romantic, dilapidated old bathhouse. Sitting amid this mix of rugged locals and eccentric city folk, I am brought back under the same spell that has enchanted Strukel and Osbourne. I can’t help but root for them.