LOS GATOS — An old lumber mill site nestled in a secluded and scenic spot in the Santa Cruz Mountains is up for sale after a years-long effort to renovate and refurbish the history-rich property.
Laurel Mill Lodge is being offered at $4.995 million, according to a marketing brochure being circulated by Santa Cruz-based real estate firm Anderson Christie, which has the listing.
“This is a rare opportunity to own a piece of Santa Cruz Mountains history,” the marketing brochure states.
The 24-acre Laurel Mill Lodge property is in Santa Cruz County, although it has a Los Gatos address at 16770 Redwood Lodge Road. The lodge property’s owner is also offering to sell a nearby 10-acre parcel, bringing the total asking price for the combined 34 acres to slightly over $5.3 million.
A business entity headed up by Soquel resident Cliff Maas owns the property. The Maas-led entity bought the property in 2017 and has been busy renovating, upgrading and modernizing the property.
“This is a labor of love,” Maas said. “I wanted to bring out this property’s full potential.”
The property had been greatly neglected before the Maas purchase.
“Cliff likes to say that he’s an artist and the land is his canvas,” said Cassandra Maas, an Anderson Christie broker handling the listing. “He thinks it would make an absolutely amazing legacy family compound that generations could share.”
The mountain retreat features a lodge that totals 4,400 square feet. Eight cabins and six dormitory-style A-frame residences are also on-site, located on hillsides and somewhat removed from the main house. The eight cabins can sleep up to 32 people while the A-Frames can accommodate up to 24.
Redwood groves, a creek, beach area and swimming sites are among the open-space amenities touted by the brochure. Winding trails, an amphitheater and a huge meadow next to the main house are part of the property.
The conference room, which totals 1,200 square feet, features a big redwood table. To create plenty of space in the middle, depending on the type of meeting, a hydraulic lift can raise the redwood table towards the ceiling.
Well over a century ago, Laurel Mill Lodge property was a hub for lumber processing operations as well as a railway line and train stop to serve the mill and train passengers.
“Laurel Mill was one of the Bay Area’s main sources of lumber from 1899 to 1913,” according to a post on the lodge’s website. “This was Frederick Hihn’s first mill, although lumber was already the largest industry in Santa Cruz County.”
Hihn migrated from Germany to California to chase his fortune during the California Gold Rush. Fires and floods wiped out his business endeavors in San Francisco and Sacramento and he eventually made his way to Santa Cruz.
In Santa Cruz, Hihn encountered much greater success, launching and investing in grocery, waterworks, real estate, railroad, banking and lumber businesses. His enterprises included sawmills at several sites in the Santa Cruz Mountains, including the Laurel township.
“It was lumber from the Laurel mill that was used for rebuilding large sections of San Francisco after the earthquake and fire in 1906,” the lodge’s website states.
The Laurel mill closed in 1913, a year after Hihn died.
The former mess hall and kitchen for the lumber mill became the core of the lodge. The cabins and A-frames were added over some years. A second floor and attic were added to the main lodge building to create the framework for the structure as it is today.
Over the 110 years since the mill closed, the lodge property has been used as a group foster home, a children’s camp.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the property was converted into a retreat center and massage school. During that time, an outdoor hot tub was added along with a second swimming pool.
In the 1980s, a brief attempt was made to convert the expansive property into a nudist colony. Ultimately, that endeavor failed and went bankrupt.
Despite being in a remote location, the complex has high-speed Internet access.
“Whether envisioning the property as an off-site coding facility, a serene retreat center, or a family getaway, the possibilities are as vast and varied as the landscape,” the property’s marketing brochure states.
While the sales efforts continue, Cliff Maas continues to tinker with the property and improve the structures and the grounds. His current project is to upgrade a small pavilion next to the main lodge building by adding new cabinets and redwood countertops.
“It’s got this Winchester House component to it,” Cliff Maas said in a joking reference to Sarah Winchester, the famed American heiress and innovative architect who orchestrated numerous additions to the now-historic mansion in San Jose that she built, expanded and renovated over decades spanning the late 1800s and the early 1900s.
Cliff Maas believes the revamped Laurel Mill Lodge property has plenty of potential.
“I wanted to preserve it,” Maas said. “It could be a community asset. It could be a family compound. There are a lot of possibilities.”
