Tecopa Hot Springs Resort

The Dream

Most endeavors begin with a dream. Tecopa Hot Springs Resort is an endeavor that is many dreams woven together, past, present and future.

There was the dream of a man named Harry Rosenberg. Harry was a railroad man who worked the Tidewater & Tonopah that once ran through Tecopa.

This is an excerpt from a correspondence with Harry Rosenberg, Jr. and Amy, January 2002.

Amy:
Walking the land, figuring and tickling systems alive has been exciting, ok -- challenging. Having more of the history is helpful from the system point of view. The human part is even more interesting. I've heard a lot of nice things about Beaulah. Several people have had dreams of a lady cooking in the house or looking out the living room window.

Harry:
Beaulah was my father's fifth wife. My mother died, Audry he divorced, Grace died, Gladys died, then Beaulah. Gladys was the only one of the bunch with a business head. They had a great relationship. Her death hit him as hard as my mother's death did.

Amy:
I wonder about your Dad dreaming it up in the first place and I imagine that he must have loved the place in a way like I do.

Harry:
He did. And he expected everyone else to. My first memory of specific conversation was in 42 or 43. You could check in Independence, but I think he bought the place in 44.

Amy:
Did he build the cinder block bath way out in the back (east of the resort)?

Harry:
Yes he did. I forgot about that. He and Gladys also lived in an old railroad wooden house he moved onto the property not far from the block works, to the Northwest, that building is surely gone by now. It wasn't much to start with even by Tecopa standards.

Amy:
It's about three quarters crumbling now and looks like a salt cedar, also called Tamarisk and sometimes Athol, has clogged up the spring there.

Harry:
This would pain him, as this spring was his pride and joy and the reason his clientele kept coming back, and why he bought the place in the first place. Temperature was 109F right out of the ground, but the flow rate wasn't high enough to keep the pool anywhere near that. More like 100-102F maybe. He found a bison hip while digging the pit for the pool.

Amy:
I look forward to fixing that one up again in time. It's a wonderful walk in the back especially to watch the sun come up.

Harry:
This is my first memory of the property; we visited in early '45, to lay out plans. In 48 maybe I also saw the sky light up before dawn bright as day from an A Bomb test up at the flats. I had a Boy Scout troop at the time and we camped out a lot.

What I miss most is the incredible quietness. Working at the Western Talc and the noonday put a forever ring of tinnitus in my ears.

*********************

Harry Jr. is a very interesting person! His early life in the Armagosa has colored his life's journey. His company is http://www.amargosa.net and you can read some of his musings about growing up along the T&T at http://www.amargosa.net/Amargosa_Days.html and here http://www.amargosa.net/mod_fotos.html.

Beaulah was a much-loved schoolteacher, who worked as a cook in siding houses along the railroad before that. She lived in the last rail tie house that Harry built until she passed on. Her spirit and memory lives fondly on, in some of our local residents.

The Holloway's and their buddies the Schroeder's bought the land after Harry died. They built the motel, office and our bathhouse; they graded the place, and built it up quite a bit. It was a hoping place. Mr. Holloway is described as "fast by Tecopa standards". He had a plane and a love for the desert like Harry and me.

A friend wrote to me about the house that Harry built, "that whoever built that place must have loved the desert, wow look at the views!" And, "wow, Amy it's like whoever built it had you in mind, it's got the best views." The whole place is like that. Takes your breath away. Watching the sunrise makes me want to sit and watch the beautiful light change the colors of the landscape all day long until the milky way shines down upon us in the dark of the night. But I usually don't sit still too long there's so much exploring to do.

The house that Harry built will be available for rent beginning March 2002. Come enjoy, history, the land and hot water.

My name is Amy LaVelle Noel. I've been exploring the Death Valley and Mojave since I was 18. I fell in love with it the first moment I breathed in big sky. Since that first trip, I've visited Death Valley at least bi-annually, as well as many other parts of the Mojave. Ten years ago I started spending even more time there. I found Tecopa when I was 19 or 20 and each trip to Death Valley includes a visit to Tecopa's hot water. The first time I saw the Amargosa Valley was on an Easter morning from the end of the road of Echo Canyon within Death Valley. I fell in love again.

My "day job" for the last 18 years has been working at the Getty Museum. Starting at the end of August 2000 I began a 3-month study and renewal leave. I volunteered myself to the Shoshone Museum and camped in Tecopa to see if I could get sick of the place. Well I didn't, I fell more in love. At the end of my leave I decided I wanted to find a piece of land for myself. I was interested in the old Hide a Way and found it was attached to the resort, which has been closed for some years.

My new year's resolution for 2001 was, DREAM BIG. One thing led to another and I was able to negotiate a fair deal for the 160 acres that includes the resort and the Hide a Way. I formed a LLC and began resurrecting the resort the summer of 2001. I have a 5-year plan that aims to find me a full time resident after my youngest daughter finishes high school. But you will find me in Tecopa very regularly, and there are welcoming hosts there in my absence.

Wonderful folks make the desert their home. It takes a special kind of person to realize that in the wide-open space and sky and silence that we are not alone at all. Raynard Banham in Scenes in American Deserata perhaps describes us better as "desert freaks". Indeed we are all special, but too often we don't take time to slow down and experience something bigger than ourselves.

When you start venturing across what Mary Austin described as the land of little rain, laid before your eyes are eons of time. When you take the time to experience it, in all it's extreme beauties something in your soul stirs a place in your heart and even if you only ever visit once you will never be the same. There will be a place in your heart that oou's at great expanse and an ahhhing in your spirit that echo's the ahhhh inevitably heard when folks step into the hot baths.

The desert has done all that for me. I love it when I'm all by myself just as much as I love to share it with folks. In the many years of camping out and exploring my dreaming has been enriched. And so, I am honored to have the opportunity to dream big and I am ever grateful for the courage to act on those dreams. With feet on the ground and head in the heavens everything is possible.

I am honored by the wonderful people who have contributed in many ways towards the dream of resurrecting the Tecopa Hot Springs Resort. The Tecopa Hot Springs Resort dream has been dormant for the last six years. I am thankful and awed by the many wonderful blessings and hard work that is going into resurrecting this dream. We all look forward to welcoming you when you pass by. We hope you will stay and spend some time dreaming big too.

Many blessings and safe travels,

~Amy & Venice, Tecopa 2002