# Hotel California location update
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [December 2, 2013, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304 "2013-12-02T19:34:53Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tonyfop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tonyfop)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2013, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/1 "2013-12-02T19:34:53Z")
I just read today’s golden oldie about “colitas”, [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1053/in-the-song-hotel-california-what-does-colitas-mean](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1053/in-the-song-hotel-california-what-does-colitas-mean), and I just wanted to point out that one of the possible locations for the Hotel California no longer exists. The Camarillo State Mental Hospital mentioned in this article is now the California State University, Channel Islands campus. The rumor that linked the hospital to the song was definitely well known at the time I was stationed at nearby NAS Pt. Mugu in the 1995-1998 timeframe. You could see the bell tower from the road, and although it was similar to the one on the album cover, I do not think that it was the same tower.
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### Author:  [@Powers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Powers)
#### Post date: [December 2, 2013, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/2 "2013-12-02T20:39:35Z")
> [@tonyfop](#):
>
> You could see the bell tower from the road, and although it was similar to the one on the album cover, I do not think that it was the same tower.
The towers on the cover belonged to the Beverly Hills Hotel. [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beverly\_Hills\_Hotel,\_1925.jpg](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beverly_Hills_Hotel,_1925.jpg)
Powers &8^]
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### Author:  [@qazwart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qazwart)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2013, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/3 "2013-12-03T19:53:34Z")
> [@tonyfop](#):
>
> I just read today’s golden oldie about “colitas”, [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1053/in-the-song-hotel-california-what-does-colitas-mean](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1053/in-the-song-hotel-california-what-does-colitas-mean)The Camarillo State Mental Hospital mentioned in this article is now the California State University, Channel Islands campus.
I take it that the conversion from mental hospital to state university didn’t take all that long.
I wonder if they granted tenure to of the residents before the conversion was complete.
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### Author:  [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)
#### Post date: [December 3, 2013, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/4 "2013-12-03T19:59:39Z")
Ten year to tenure, baby. Easy as pi.
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### Author:  [@Rob\_Metzler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rob_Metzler)
#### Post date: [December 7, 2013, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/5 "2013-12-07T14:31:32Z")
I think I’ve always just heard - coitas - coh ee tus.
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2013, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/6 "2013-12-08T16:19:28Z")
The State had issued warnings about the time this album came out. Basically saying that if you travel along the Big Sur coast, to stay on the coast, don’t wander up into the hills. Seems there were some Satanic cults and Manson-wanna-bes causing grief for the rubber-neckers. I don’t know if that’s what Unca Cece’s talking about “(3) It’s about satanism. Isn’t everything?”. That’s where I’ve always thought Hotel California was. “The pitfalls of living in [pre-draught] southern [sic] California” makes sense to me, how could I have been so blind all these years.
Cocaine addiction … B-O-G-U-S … you can leave anytime you want … but you’ll be paying that bill the rest of your life … you can never check out.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2013, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/7 "2013-12-08T18:46:41Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#):
>
> The State had issued warnings about the time this album came out. Basically saying that if you travel along the Big Sur coast, to stay on the coast, don’t wander up into the hills. Seems there were some Satanic cults and Manson-wanna-bes causing grief for the rubber-neckers.
Cite for this, please?
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/8 "2013-12-08T19:10:08Z")
I’m not trying to prove anything, just relate what my own eye saw … and perhaps clarify our Master’s deepest thoughts. There’s more to this than just “Rock Music = Satan”. I’ve stumbled across more pentagrams in them hills than I care to remember. Next time I’m in Redwood City, I’ll try and dredge up any articles about this.
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### Author:  [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2013, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/9 "2013-12-08T19:39:54Z")
Weren’t we all so literal in the day?
I find “The Last Resort” to be the Eagles more mature reflection on their “Hotel California” days and I think they were singing about culture, progress and social/economical decay. Aren’t they talking about the dangers of taking anything to extremes?
I’m thinking Hotel California was the whole state and what it had once represented compared to what it had become once too many people (and crazies) flocked there.
But then, I hear everything through cultural ears.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [December 8, 2013, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/10 "2013-12-08T22:20:15Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#):
>
> I’m not trying to prove anything, just relate what my own eye saw … and perhaps clarify our Master’s deepest thoughts. There’s more to this than just “Rock Music = Satan”. I’ve stumbled across more pentagrams in them hills than I care to remember. Next time I’m in Redwood City, I’ll try and dredge up any articles about this.
I didn’t ask you to “prove” anything-I just asked for evidence to back up your claim. That is sort of what we do here in our attempts to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to facts.
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2013, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/11 "2013-12-09T01:36:24Z")
> [@Tethered\_Kite](#):
>
> I’m thinking Hotel California was the whole state and what it had once represented compared to what it had become once too many people (and crazies) flocked there.
Yeah, they went from Reagan Republicans to Moonbeam Freakoloists in just one election. I’m not much of an Eagles fan, if they didn’t open for the Dead, I’ve probably not seen them.
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### Author:  [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2013, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/12 "2013-12-09T03:53:26Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#):
>
> Yeah, they went from Reagan Republicans to Moonbeam Freakoloists in just one election. I’m not much of an Eagles fan, if they didn’t open for the Dead, I’ve probably not seen them.
I don’t understand your point.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2013, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/13 "2013-12-09T13:24:36Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#):
>
> I’m not trying to prove anything, just relate what my own eye saw … and perhaps clarify our Master’s deepest thoughts. There’s more to this than just “Rock Music = Satan”. I’ve stumbled across more pentagrams in them hills than I care to remember. Next time I’m in Redwood City, I’ll try and dredge up any articles about this.
I’ve search the internet for cites about California State warnings concerning strange goings on in the hills when that record came out, and haven’t found a thing.
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/14 "2013-12-09T16:24:01Z")
> [@Tethered\_Kite](#):
>
> I don’t understand your point.
> [@Tethered\_Kite](#):
>
> I’m thinking Hotel California was the whole state and what it had once represented …
Governor Reagan served from 1963-71. He was wildly poplar with his brand of conservatism: smaller government, law and order, send in the National Guard to beat the crap out of them dirty hippies in Berkeley. The California of the day prided themselves in a pleasant combination of Midwestern sensibility, ethnic diversity and a deep relief they weren’t part of Imperial Japan.
> [@Tethered\_Kite](#):
>
> … compared to what it had become once too many people (and crazies) flocked there.
These crazies registered to vote and promptly elected Jerry Brown Jr, a man it’s fair to say was left of George McGovern. California became a haven for communes, decriminalize pot, a pretty nasty water war and Proposition 5.
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> I’ve search the internet for cites about California State warnings concerning strange goings on in the hills when that record came out, and haven’t found a thing.
I’m sure if Mr. Charter Member can’t find it on the internet, then it can’t possibly be there. What you’re saying is that I didn’t see this with my own eyes.
Are you calling me a liar?
Citation please.
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### Author:  [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2013, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/15 "2013-12-09T16:37:57Z")
What I am saying is that you haven’t provided a cite for your claim that there was an official California State warning as you described, and that I can not seem to find any mention of said official California State warning on the internet that matches the one described by you.
In short: It’s _your_ claim, so _you_ get to find the cite.
edited to add: I didn’t call you a liar in any way, shape or form.
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### Author:  [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/16 "2013-12-09T17:55:19Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#):
>
> Governor Reagan served from 1963-71. He was wildly poplar with his brand of conservatism: smaller government, law and order, send in the National Guard to beat the crap out of them dirty hippies in Berkeley. The California of the day prided themselves in a pleasant combination of Midwestern sensibility, ethnic diversity and a deep relief they weren’t part of Imperial Japan.
>
> . . .
> These crazies registered to vote and promptly elected Jerry Brown Jr, a man it’s fair to say was left of George McGovern. California became a haven for communes, decriminalize pot, a pretty nasty water war and Proposition 5.
The Eagles are my contemporaries. Your perceptions seem a little later in scope.
IIRC the hippy community was deteriorating from within long before Reagan came along. The Haight’s glory years were short-lived once the wheeler dealers and some destructive drugs made the scene. By the Summer of Love, 1967, things were already going awry and the “pure” hippies were heading out of Dodge.
The water wars began way back in the thirties and forties.
I don’t know if we’re on the same page or not. But I think the Eagles were focusing on the nature of humans and the failure to restrain their enthusiasms that throws a monkey wrench into things.
A lot of their early songs describe the quest for earthly joy. Then along comes “Hotel California” with its hints that maybe there’s something a bit dark in all this hedonism. I don’t see it as political.
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2013, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/17 "2013-12-10T16:02:49Z")
> [@Tethered\_Kite](#):
>
> Your perceptions seem a little later in scope.
The album came out in 1976, I was hangin’ at Beserkley, dropin’ acid and reading Zap Comix. At 15 years old, my perceptions weren’t “a little later” but rather a little young. I have no idea what your talking about with “the hippy community was deteriorating from within long before Reagan came along.” Dude, Reagan was in his second term as governor in 1967.
The song " … is about the pitfalls of living in southern [sic] California in the 1970s." I just trying to bring to the table that these were deep chasms in Northern California. As to the question of exactly where Hotel California is, I think due consideration should be made of placing it at Delos, about a quarter mile north of West World (like in the movie).
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### Author:  [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/18 "2013-12-10T16:27:34Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#):
>
> edited to add: I didn’t call you a liar in any way, shape or form.
You do seem to be over-aggressively pursuing an issue that he’s not really grandstanding.
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### Author:  [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2013, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/19 "2013-12-10T21:58:21Z")
> [@Rob\_Metzler](#):
>
> I think I’ve always just heard - coitas - coh ee tus.
I think you’re thinking of “[coitus](http://www.thefreedictionary.com/coitus)”.
I don’t think that’s what the Eagles meant.
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### Author:  [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2013, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hotel-california-location-update/675304/20 "2013-12-10T23:28:20Z")
FWIW, in the recent Eagles documentary, Henley said the song is about “the journey from innocence to experience” (probably not a word for word quote, I saw it a few months ago).
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