One of the Coast’s most spectacular view properties, the Sacred Rock Inn in Elk, has closed down, laid off all staff abruptly and announced a permanent closure and refunds to those who paid for rooms in the month of June. This came after the clifftop property was part of a big 2 year publicity campaign for the town of Elk that sought to wow the Bay Area with a chance to visit the small town with top-rated restaurants. Some felt the level of publicity was overdone and may have partly backfired.
The Jackson Band of Miwok Indians, a tribe whose land base is the Jackson Rancheria in Jackson, California, bought a cluster of separate properties in Elk from 2014-2018, including four spectacular parcels on the west side of the highway in the middle of downtown and one on the east side. The properties remain separate parcels in county files. However, they are connected by walkways. It’s unknown so far if the tribe will find a single buyer or restart part of the operation. The tribe owned a historic pub and Griffin House, attached to the inn.
“The tribe got off to a good start, making numerous acts of generosity — free firewood, home repairs for some elderly, etc — to win favor in Elk, but after extreme delays during Covid they never recovered. The kiss of death was their hiring of a snooty tourism management outfit a couple of years ago,” a reader told Mendocinocoast.news.
The tribe bought the local community services district a “jaws of life” machine at one point, which cost fifteen thousand dollars.
The property is not part of a tribal reservation; it’s fee simply owned by the tribe as any investor would own property. Mendocino Coast News wrote about this trend earlier in the year, profiling the purchases of a non-casino tribe in Fort Bragg that operates an indigenous youth campout on a large property at Pudding Creek.
That tribe also has property in Caspar, Westport and on the Eel River.
Non-gaming tribes are using money paid to them by gaming tribes to buy up land and make investments all over the state and county. In this case, Jackson Rancheria is a gaming tribe and the property is not within the tribe’s historic universe.
As the story goes, Tribal leader Adam Dalton and his wife Janet were delighted by Greenwood Pier while traveling on vacation. The tribe bought Griffin House and Bridget Dolan’s Pub as well as the historic Greenwood Pier Inn, which was composed of numerous cottages, apparently combined with a few at Griffin House. Artist Kendrick Petty, who acquired the Inn in the 1970s had made it his personal art and community project before selling. He died in 2019.
Elk, still also known by its former name, Greenwood, seemed to have reached a zenith as a tourist getaway during a big flurry of publicity in 2023 and 2024. Here is one story
Griffin House was built in 1890 along with Bridget Dolan’s Pub. Those two properties have been owned by the tribe and kept functioning as an eatery during the decade the inn was being renovated.
The project in Elk had been hit hard by the pandemic, and after renovation, the 19 units reopened in June 2024. Rooms started at $600 per night, according to online booking sites. The closure was official on June 1. A voice recording on the phone number for the inn said it was permanent. The recorded message said all those who had paid for rooms would be refunded their money in 7-10 days.
The tribe had its plans recently rejected for a major project in its hometown of Jackson, 233 miles from Elk in the Sierra foothills. The California Legislature tabled a bill in March that would have authorized the project. Competition has been fierce among tribes with casinos.
The Jackson Rancheria has been recognized by the federal government as a tribe since 1898. Under the leadership of 30-year tribal chair Margaret Dalton, the tribe launched a bingo hall in the 1980s and then opened a relatively modest casino in its hometown in Amador County.
From the Elk Facebook page:
The tribe has always been very generous with our community. Donating money to support the fire department, the community center… when the church needed a roof or the community center needed a hot water heater they were happy to supply it. But we all were wondering how they were able to make it with what seemed like very few customers
