Qualla: The Redwood Retreat Where Power Relaxes

The Redwood Retreat Where Power Relaxes: Introduction

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. In September 1942, a group of physicists and military officials gathered at a clubhouse designed by Bernard Maybeck, deep in a redwood forest north of San Francisco. Among them were Ernest Lawrence and J. Robert Oppenheimer. The meeting they hosted contributed to the planning of the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. The location was not a government facility or a university lab. It was a private campground owned by a gentlemen's club founded by newspaper journalists sixty-four years earlier. Bohemian Grove, tucked along the Russian River in Sonoma County, has always been a place where the powerful go to be informal, and where informality has occasionally produced consequences that shaped the world.

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

The Redwood Retreat Where Power Relaxes: From Scribblers to Statesmen

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USMC Archives from Quantico, USA, CC BY 2.0. The Bohemian Club began in 1878 as a gathering of San Francisco journalists, writers, and artists. The name evoked the free-spirited creative class, not the geographic region. But creativity alone could not fund the acquisition of 2,712 acres of old-growth redwood forest along th...

Image: USMC Archives from Quantico, USA | CC BY 2.0

The Redwood Retreat Where Power Relaxes: Cremation of Care

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Aarkwilde, CC BY-SA 3.0. Every July, the two-week summer encampment opens with the Cremation of Care, a ceremonial bonfire at the foot of a forty-foot owl shrine on the edge of an artificial lake. The ritual dates to the club's early years, when a dramatic performance called the "High Jinks" concluded wi...

Image: Aarkwilde | CC BY-SA 3.0

The Redwood Retreat Where Power Relaxes: Inside the Trees

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Brianhama, CC BY-SA 4.0. The core of Bohemian Grove is 160 acres of old-growth redwoods, some more than a thousand years old and exceeding 300 feet in height. Scattered beneath these trees are 118 camps, the sleeping quarters and social units around which Grove life revolves. Many camps are patrilineal, ...

Image: Brianhama | CC BY-SA 4.0

The Redwood Retreat Where Power Relaxes: Uninvited Guests

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USMC Archives from Quantico, USA, CC BY 2.0. Secrecy breeds curiosity, and Bohemian Grove has drawn its share of infiltrators. In 1980, journalist Rick Clogher posed as an employee for two weekends, producing what Mother Jones called the first published magazine account from inside the Grove. In 1989, Spy magazine writer Ph...

Image: USMC Archives from Quantico, USA | CC BY 2.0

The Redwood Retreat Where Power Relaxes: The Redwoods and the Law

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit USMC Archives from Quantico, USA, CC BY 2.0. For all its mystique, Bohemian Grove has faced distinctly ordinary legal battles. In 1978, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing charged the club with discrimination for refusing to hire women. The case wound through the courts for nearly a decade. An initial r...

Image: USMC Archives from Quantico, USA | CC BY 2.0