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Murrieta Hot Springs Resort Set to Open to the Public After Three Decades

The New Year will bring Southwest Riverside County something old that is new again. Okay, put down your pumpkin-spiced eggnog and follow along. 

In February 2024, the Murrieta Hot Springs Resort will open its doors and rejuvenating therapeutic mineral springs to the public for the first time in more than 30 years.

In 2021 Olympus Real Estate Holdings LTD, which owns The Springs Resort & Spa in Colorado, purchased the one time world famous resort and spa from Calvary Chapel, which had been the site of their Bible College and Conference Center since the mid-1990s.

“We are dedicated to preserving the history of Murrieta Hot Springs Resort while simultaneously adding new chapters to its storied history,” said Sharon Holtz, Vice President of Wellness at Murrieta Hot Spring Resort in a press release. “We’ll introduce exceptional facilities, restorative spa and wellness experiences, and a range of offerings all centered around promoting vitality through the revitalizing qualities of geothermal mineral water and Southern California quintessence.”

It’s a good bet most people living in the region these days have visited or are even aware of the storied history of the once world-famous resort. In 1995 less than 170,000 people lived in Southwest County. These days that number is approaching 1 million.

The therapeutic value of the hot springs was known before Europeans came to the valley in the 1800s.

Old aerial image of Murrieta Hot Springs Resort red buildings surrounded by greenery

Juan Murrieta washed his sheep in the springs. In the 1880s, a San Diego laundry business sent clothes by train to Murrieta to be cleaned in the spring’s heated waters. A three-day turnaround was guaranteed.

Along came Fritz Guenther, who was born in Germany on Christmas Day 1848 and arrived in America in 1871 with his brother to start a business in Chicago.

When the Guenthers’ business was destroyed by fire, Fritz headed west, eventually arriving in Los Angeles in the 1880s where he owned a couple of saloons.

On a visit to Murrieta in 1902, he saw the potential business opportunity of a mineral health spa. At the time, the place was little more than a run-down hotel and bathhouse.

Fritz bought the 200-acre hot springs resort for $12,000.

Over the next few decades Guenther and his family added lodging, therapeutic pools, bath houses, dining and conference areas all the while touting the benefits of natural warm, healing, mineral waters.

“Guenther’s Murrieta Mineral Hot Springs” drew thousands of visitors to a speck on the map in the middle of nowhere surrounded by hundreds of acres of farmland.

The resort became known nationally and internationally.

Resort staff would drive a bus to the Murrieta Train Depot to pick up guests and ferry them along Webster Avenue to the resort. Train service to Murrieta ended in the 1930s. In the 1950s Webster Avenue became Murrieta Hot Springs Road to help drivers more easily find the place.

Guests, including many celebrities, athletes, and musicians, flocked to the resort. Some stayed for months at a time.

Old photo from the 1950s of women in classic bathings suits by the pool and two men sitting next to the pool

Some played baseball.

In March of 1911, the Los Angeles Angels baseball team of the Pacific Coast League arrived at the resort for spring training.

“Members of the Coast League baseball team … trained at the springs in March 1911,” reads the caption under a photo in the excellent book “Images of America – Murrieta Hot Springs. “They endured an unseasonably rainy spring training with hot mineral and mud baths, alcohol rubs, and massages.”

The mud baths, alcohol rubs and massages at the Hot Springs didn’t do much to help the Angels in 1911. The club posted an 82-127 mark and finished last.

Fritz Guenter died in 1912. His family continued to add to and improve the resort. Murrieta remained a very rural farm community. Most folks who didn’t farm were employed by the resort.

By the 1960s many of the celebrities who favored the resort as a “getaway” from the prying eyes of fame, along with the tourists, had moved on to destinations such as Palm Springs and Las Vegas.

The Guenther family ran the resort until they sold the property in December 1969.

That’s when things got a little weird.

Subsequent owners are said to have laundered money for the Teamsters Union through the resort. Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa is reported to have been seen there shortly before disappearing in 1975.

About that time, a self-proclaimed doctor of philosophy leased the hot springs and set up a clinic that promised to cure cancer using a diet of lemon juice and water. Desperate patients came from all over, as did Mike Wallace and television show “60 Minutes,” which did an expose on the clinic that helped put it out of business.

In the mid-1980s, the 300-member group Alive Polarity bought the resort and turned it into a vegetarian commune.

The commune lasted just a few years.

The resort facilities and surrounding grounds fell into disrepair until 1995 when Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa purchased the property. Calvery Chapel converted the resort to a Bible College and Conference Center and restored many of the original buildings. 

They also produced an excellent video, available on YouTube, on the history of the resort. You can view it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB8ydR8BVok

You can also purchase the “Images of America – Murrieta Hot Springs” book, written by local authors including Rebecca Farnbach and Tony Guenther, at Barnes and Noble, the Murrieta History Museum and the Temecula History Center at the Vail Ranch Headquarters in Temecula. 

Southwest Riverside County is certainly not in the middle of nowhere anymore. In 2022 about 3.2 million visitors traveled to our region. While here they spent almost $1 billion. Tourist related businesses employ over 9,000 people.  

These days visitors can chose a variety of accommodations, from budget hotels to world-class resorts. 

The restoration and reopening of the historic Murrieta Hot Springs Resort, with more than 50 geothermal pools, water features and cold plunges available for day use or for overnight guests, will offer a unique experience to both locals and visitors.

Reservations are now being accepted at murrieta-hotsprings.com.

Red flowers in front and pool in background

Written by John Hunneman

For three decades John Hunneman was a reporter and columnist for both The Californian and Riverside Press-Enterprise newspapers. He retired in 2020 after serving as the Communications Director for California State Senator Jeff Stone.

John currently serves on the City of Murrieta Parks and Recreation Commission and is on the Board of Directors of The Nature Education Foundation at the Santa Rosa Plateau.

He recently concluded two years of service on the Riverside County Civil Grand Jury.

John is a proud Vietnam-Era U.S. Navy veteran and a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

He and his wife Yvonne have lived in Murrieta for 35 years. Both of their sons graduated from Murrieta Valley High School.

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