Dark skies and wireless telegrams meet cult history at this unique Northern California stay
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The headline for this feature was originally going to be about how this Northern California lodge boasts best-in-class dark skies for stargazing, but as luck would have it, my family and I stayed at the Lodge at Marconi—a little more than an hour north of San Francisco—on a cloudy night. Even after I happened to wake up at 3am and ventured outside to check, the stars were still obscured. Despite that fluke, on most nights the lodge is unusually well-situated for celestial viewing. In fact, West Marin, which encompasses the lodge’s town of Marshall, California, is poised to become Northern California’s first officially designated dark-sky community thanks to ordinances that curb light pollution and protect the unspoiled night sky.
At the Lodge at Marconi, lighting across its 62 acres is dimmed, so you get the best possible view of the heavens and can even hike on its 3.5 miles of trails at night or forest bathe under the stars. You’re guaranteed a peaceful experience because the lodge sits within the Marconi State Historic Park, and the scenic campus overlooks Tomales Bay.
“Having spent time under Montana’s big sky, I don’t say this lightly… on a clear, moonless night, West Marin has nothing to envy,” says general manager Robert Fegan. “At Marconi, the Milky Way can stretch across the bay, stars reflect off the water, and the darkness creates a remarkable sense of quiet.”
Although our visit didn’t give us incredible stargazing, it still gave us a memorable stay we’ll be talking about for a long time because of three aspects: the beautiful drive to Tomales Bay, the lodge’s history as a telegraph spot for the Marconi wireless system to communicate with ships at sea, and, perhaps most interestingly, the use of the site by a full-on cult in the 1960s and ’70s called Synanon. I’ll tackle each of these in order.
Content retrieved from: https://www.timeout.com/usa/news/dark-skies-and-wireless-telegrams-meet-cult-history-at-this-unique-northern-california-stay-043026.
