Fun Facts

Structure and Furnishings

• Stagecoach Road in front of the Tavern was raised 18 feet in 1936.
• The mantel over the Log Cabin Bar fireplace, built in 1955, is made from the last Edison electric pole used in the area.
• Audrey built the small building to the side of the Tavern so that children had a place of their own. Charles Schultz visited in 1996 and Audrey asked if it was ok to name it the “Charlie Brown House”.   Schultz replied yes, but when asked if she could add a Snoopy weathervane, he jokingly said he would have to sue her for $100,000.
• The Tavern first got electricity in 1954 but we still use gas lanterns today for their warm glow.
• After a car ran through the Tavern in 1945, a large rock, which now bears a historical plaque, was placed next to the Tavern.
• A fish tank sat in the Long Room up against the window from1959-1964. Customers selected their trout to be cooked up fresh from the tank.
• Original plans to build Highway 154 included burying the Tavern under 125 feet of dirt. Thankfully that idea was too expensive.  The Cold Spring Bridge was built for $2 million in 1963.
• The brass rail in the Front Room bar is made from 8 feet of the Santa Barbara trolley track that Audrey traded for parts from her wrecked 1957 Chevy.
• The sideboard inside the Long Room was a liquor cabinet bought from the crew of the S.S. Cuba, which was shipwrecked south of San Miguel Island in 1923. The “staircase to nowhere” beside the Ojai jail also came from the ship.
• The old ore car beside the Gang House came from the Old River Queen Mine, where both silver and gold were mined from 1800 through the early 1900s.
• “Audrey’s table” in the corner of Front Room was made from the last barrel of beer produced by the Maer Beer Company. The top of the table was made from an Edison wire spool.
• The two small tables in the Front Room are from the Biltmore Hotel and were acquired around 1941.
• The bar in the Front Room, acquired in the 1950s, was made for the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics and wound up in Pop Soper’s training camp for boxers where Jack Dempsey trained.
• The swinging bar doors are from the Young’s Saloon in Eureka, California.
• The round table in the Long Room is from Gene Autrey’s home and was purchased from Doc Sahr in North Hollywood for $25 along with a spittoon and branding irons.
• The kitchen queen in the Long Room is the only original piece of furniture because the caretakers, the Greens, couldn’t fit it through the door. A French man built it inside the Tavern to pay the Doultons for room and board.  It is still used today.
• The bench in front of the Tavern is made from a Sycamore tree on the property which fell in 1966.
• The buggy wheel light in the Long Room came from Tony’s Log Cabin.
• The wall of 12 inch panels between the White Room and the RV Room is original to the Tavern.
• The bookcase in the White Room was once the door to the kitchen.