The Oaks in Ojai, 1950s
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This stylish illustration of an oak tree with its single acorn is a lovely example of mid-century menu design. It was created for the Oaks hotel and restaurant in Ojai, a scenic small city in Ventura County, California, located 80 miles northwest of Los Angeles and twelve miles inland from the Pacific Ocean.
Its history begins as a quiet little Spanish-style inn called El Roblar that opened for business in 1919. Over decades, it came to be known as the Oaks, an upmarket gathering places where visitors included Hollywood celebrities of the era and the American mobster Bugsy Siegel (1906-1947).
In 1952, the hotel was bought by businessman Frank Keenan and run by his brother Bill. Cottages were built around the pool, and it remained a sought-after place to stay. When the Keenan brothers were jailed for tax evasion back in their home state of Illinois, ownership was transferred to a Chicago heiress with the wonderful name of Lolita Armour.
The next owner in the 1960s was Vernon Johnson, from Santa Barbara. Described in an account recorded by the Ojai Valley Museum, he was ‘a big, bluff, bearded extrovert who worked as a telephone company lineman-foreman. Johnson had come into an inheritance and had always wanted to run a hotel.
Several years prior, he had gained a measure of fame when he toured around the world, including through Siberia, in a converted Greyhound bus with his wife and nine children. He bought the mortgage from Lolita Armour for $295,000 — making a $50,000 cash payment.
Johnson lasted a year before filing for bankruptcy.
The manager of the hotel Keith Lloyd, left, manager of the Oaks, created El Roblar Corp, a community enterprise with 300 shareholders which bought the financially-plagued hotel at auction in 1965 for $230,000 and revived it.
Later it became The Oaks at Ojai, a much-loved but no-frills wellness retreat that operated for decades before closing after a fire in 2017.
Now the history of the Oaks has come full circle. Following a multi-year restoration, the historic Ojai property has once again become the El Roblar and is a 50-room luxury retreat.
This menu is from the 1950s. Thanks to https://www.ojaivalleymuseum.org/ for some of this information.
Each order includes a print of the interior menu.
All printed in USA.
