In October, the Wrightwood Historical Society will be touring Acorn Lodge, the House that B...built, and perhaps in their walk through the past they will be visited by haunts along the way. Rumor has it that the Acorn Lodge's builder, William Bristol, never did leave the property after his demise. The caretaker built a gravesite south of the lodge, perhaps to remind the original owner to rest peacefully and to ignore any unfinished business that he might have. In front of the fabled lodge sits a white granite pile of rock in the shape of an acorn...it's been there since a lilac garden was planted there in the 1940's. Slightly raised from the fruitful soil, it surely looks like something could be buried there. The circumference of the white rock is 6X5...perhaps the size of Mr. Bristol's homemade coffin? The knickknacks and art that once grace the Acorn Lodge are long gone, the door chimes, the inside serving bell, the playful chain-suspended acorn, Banshee the Irish Ghost and it's ever present black cat and many others have faded from sight. As the front door of the Lodge opens for a tour, ignore the chill breeze of the hallway and the creak of the chains that suspend the handcrafted bells of granite. The House that B...Built bids you welcome and hopes you find things to your liking. Enjoy the house built by a man with one and one half hands.
On the southwest corner of what would be called "Spruce Street and Eagle", Mr. B...William M. Bristol...began building on a block long area, which he purchased from Sumner and Kate Wright in 1926. It was an unique structure of native rock and wood. Much has changed within the Lodge itself. Two of the four bedrooms were taken out to allow larger group of campers when the old Church of the Open Door, Los Angeles, purchased the Lodge in 1952 and used the grounds for a church camp. Previous to this, Bristol fashioned each four rooms to have a certain theme.
Acorn Lodge was built within a small grove of towering oak trees. It was built of oak logs set on end on top of a massive stone foundation that rose to the bottom of the lodge windows. At the corners of the living room, the corner logs flanked the wide fireplace, all were three feet in diameter and hollowed, and the hollow portion of the logs faces inward. Painted on light weight galvanized iron, in each hollowed log, were two local landscape scenes, they were of Mount Baden Powell and one of Wrightwood's lakes surrounded by large pines. The thin wire grates that fit over the painted vertical openings, in conjunction with the illuminating lights over head, made you feel that you were looking out a typical window at a perfect outdoor scene.
Jennie Cook Davis painted these scenes under the strong urging from William Bristol and reluctantly went allowing with his following request: "Now I want you to make a series of paintings to illustrate your poem of the Overland Trail." At the age of 77, she painted the scenes of the Overland Trail. Meanwhile, William Bristol began building the present day Overland Trail building at Acorn Lodge to show off her work.
Jennie wrote the poem "The Overland Trail" forty-three years previously...now she would be painting the scenes of the poem by memory. The paintings of Jennie Cook Davis were ten in all, each were approximately four feet by five feet, and each of them illustrated stanzas of the poem. Mrs. Davis painting included a team of oxen and wagon coming down a ridge to a river, an Indian seated on Indian pony and bison on a rise, a burning covered wagon, a view of a covered wagon in a small valley from a ridge, a lone howling coyote on a barren ridge line and a group of yucca trees.
The Overland Trail building was built to house the panoramas painted by Jennie Cook Davis. It was approximately twenty feet by fifty feet in dimensions and constructed out of the granite and white rock from Wrightwood's landscape. The building's eight columns of white quartz came from a giant boulder...as did the bronze-colored rock border around "The Overland Trail" mosaic on the face of the north exterior wall.
With an electric pencil, Mr. Bristol etched each stanza of Jennie Cook Davis' poem "The Overland Trail" on small pine rounds. He shape a group of alcoves out of logs set on their end and reaching up to the base of each of the paintings. Painstakingly, Mr. Bristol used stone, sand and desert vegetation to complete the three foot by one half foot deep alcoves. He then shaped a landscape in the foreground of each alcove to match the painted scenes. On each alcove, Bristol attached the pine rounds that had each "The Overland Trail" stanza etched into it.
Bristol's wife, Fannie Bristol, passed away in 1940 and William made the Acorn Lodge his full-time residence. It was in that same year that Mr. Bristol sold the Acorn Lodge to Dr. Samuel H. Sutherland, who soon became president of Biola University in Los Angeles. He used Acorn Lodge as private residence. Dr. Sutherland liked Bristol and agreed to let him live on the property for as long as he wanted. Bristol became sort of a caretaker, along with Jim Cairns, who was the brother-in-law of Dr. Sutherland.
William M. Bristol died June 7, 1941, of a single self-inflicted gunshot, after a long struggle with a painful illness. In typical Bristol fashion, he built a homemade pine plank and cedar casket where he laid himself to rest in a bed of pine needles. His rest was defined by a single bullet wound. He was found the following morning by G.S. Corpe and village handyman Amos Robinette. He, along with his homemade casket, was taken to the Wrightwood Store (George Richardson's store), where it was stored in the adjacent post office building. The following day the San Bernardino coroner and Bristol's eldest escorted him back to the Way-up Ranch in East Highland and to his final resting place.
Many unique pieces, handcrafted by Mr. B..., gave the Acorn Lodge its own interesting character. Many have disappeared over the long years, but aged photographs help the visitor to relive the yearly days. Many others still grace her exterior. The front door itself was one of a kind. Above its frame were two eight foot long arrows made of straight branch wood. Legend had it that the two giant arrows were shot into the forest and they brought down the two hearts that were mounted behind them. The Entrance of the Lodge was made of a thick central oak slab ripped from a stump and framed in black oak. The door itself weighted 600 pounds and was 5 1/2 feet wide and 7 feet tall! A central ball bearing allowed it to turn easy and noiselessly...and the tour of the fabled Acorn Lodge begins.
There are two ways to know exactly what secrets lay behind this great door. One is to show up for the tour of Acorn Lodge, which starts at 1 o'clock on Friday 5th, 2007, at the Wrightwood Fire House-Museum on Cedar. It will end at a walkthrough tour of Acorn Lodge itself. The other option is to wait for further postings on this Wrightwood historical site-After the tour...
The tour cannot be missed: From the Stonehenge style steps that lead to the quiet lodge, the tour will take you. Up to the night time glowing of the Acorn Lighthouse, over to the silent bells made of granite, to perhaps a quick seat on the swinging benches formed from the large oak, and a moment to study the Sun Dial that keeps eternal time. From the main lodge to the fabled "Overland Trail, around back to the quiet seclusion of the Honeymoon Tree House and then next door to the small unique "wheel" garage, made of rock and oak, where Mr. B... might had given up the ghost...there is much to see. And you are invited to a tour of the Acorn Lodge.
For perhaps the final time, the Acorn Lodge door beckons the visitor to enter therein.
Terry Graham, WW
