AFTER YOU FIND THE CACHE GO TO BEN LOMOND TO TURN AROUND IF YOU'RE HEADING TOWARD FELTON. This is a busy road so you might want to act as if you're taking a photo of the fountain (you can do the Fountain World Challenge cache while you're here!) Please hide the cache well after you find it. As an aside, the hot dog stand nearby (can't remember its name) has the best hot dogs in the world!!! In the late 19th Century during the heyday of redwood logging in the San Lorenzo Valley, lumberman James Pierce, co-founder of the town of Ben Lomond in 1887, deliberately left groves and corridors among his logging operations to enhance his plans to develop the land for tourism after his logging operations were completed.
In 1895 Thomas Bell, Ben Lomond's post master, bought 300 acres of Pierce's forest between Highlands Park and the Ben Lomond Bridge and built a resort which he called Rowardennan Redwood Park.
Now remember that in those days, anybody who was anybody in the Bay Area would spend several weeks each summer vacationing in the Santa Cruz Mountains, many vacationers eventually buying land and building summer homes usually along the creeks and among the redwoods.
Bell's resort was one of the finest. He chose a Scottish name for his resort since Scottish names were so prevalent in these mountains. The name he chose, Rowardennan (pronounced "Row-ar-DEN-nan" or "Ro WAR den an" by the locals) combines the name of an enchanted Scottish flower (the Rowan, which drives off evil spirits) with a derivation of the Celtic arduos, or ardeuenna, for "high woodland," to mean "enchanted forest." The name comes from that of the 300-year-old Rowardennan Hotel situated on the eastern banks of Scotland's Loch Lomond where the legendary outlaw Rob Roy once roamed. Scotland's Rowardennan Hotel has magnificent views of Ben Lomond thus providing an appropriate name for Bell's resort situated at the foot of California's Ben Lomond Mountain.
Bell built his resort to give the city folk a true wilderness experience. Visitors could rent horses and equipment for camping in the woods or touring his network of trails. Rowardennan Hotel had 150 rooms housed in 16 cabins, the main lodge contained the lobby and 200-seat dining hall and the ballroom was in a separate lodge.
Bell used natural materials in his architecture; redwood and oak in their natural colors, river rock fireplaces and foundations, and redwood shingles (redwood shingles then cost only $5 for 10,000!). The log cabins had log porches, shingle roofs and rails and spandrels of fancy log grills.
The hotel grounds were surrounded on three sides by the river and contained croquet and tennis courts, and a river trail named Lover's Lane which led to a boating and swimming pond whose dam generated electricity for the hotel. This was before electricity was available to the general public.
The Rowardennan Hotel was sold separately in the late 1920s, and renamed Ben Lomond Lodge. After it burned down in 1932 the remains of the 300-acre park were subdivided for housing.
Now all that is left of Rowardennan is its fountain and a song:
"Magic enchants Rowardennan,
Here, where the moonlight
Gets caught in the trees,
And a river of stars
Flows out to the seas,
And echoes this haunting
Refrain in the breeze,
that Magic enchants Rowardennan ... "
Other Caledonian Caches in Santa Cruz Couty include:
The Road to Alba: GC1H4C4
The Kirking o’ the Tartans: GC1HARB
MacGregor Despite Them :GC5YM8A
The Bonny Doon Bus: GC2H6GG
MacKenzie Creek: GC29D6R
Ben Lomond Lookout Trailhead: GC2K2JZ