So much more than Pappy and Harriet's, Pioneertown is having a renaissance

2 months ago 10

The prima had conscionable begun its descent erstwhile the Mane Street Band took the signifier for their play Honky Tonk Sunday acceptable astatine Pioneertown’s Red Dog Saloon. Young adults successful hiking cogwheel sipped beers beneath chandeliers shaped similar wagon wheels arsenic aged timers with grey ponytails and cowboy hats chatted with a tattooed bartender. Outside, a radical of parents sat astir agelong picnic tables, ignoring their kids who were messing astir successful the dirt.

It wasn’t casual to archer who was section and who was conscionable visiting the precocious godforsaken municipality founded astir 80 years agone arsenic a imperishable movie acceptable for occidental films. The warm, neighborly country felt similar further impervious of what locals had been telling maine each weekend: The fake occidental municipality that Hollywood built has yet morphed into an existent occidental municipality with an individuality of its own.

A reddish occidental looking gathering with a motion that says Red Dog.

“This is not Knott’s Berry Farm,” said JoAnne Gosen, a section shopkeeper and goat husbandman who moved to the country 21 years ago. “This is simply a existent municipality and it’s our town.”

After years of upheaval that included skyrocketing location prices, a pandemic-fueled Airbnb boom, a failed connection for a multi-use lawsuit abstraction and a mendacious assertion by a world TV prima that she singlehandedly owned the town, residents of this tiny unincorporated assemblage accidental Pioneertown is settling into a caller equilibrium. The tumultuous epoch astatine the town’s landmark roadhouse and performance venue Pappy and Harriet’s appears to person ended arsenic caller absorption repairs relations with the surrounding community. Established businesses similar the Red Dog Saloon and the Pioneertown Motel are offering unchangeable employment to locals and transplants alike and much buildings connected Pioneertown’s western-themed “Mane St.” are being converted to small, locally tally shops.

Women creation astatine the Red Dog Saloon successful Pioneertown.

Pioneer Bowl successful Pioneertown, California connected Saturday, September 6, 2025. (Simone Lueck / For The Times)

Pioneer Bowl successful Pioneertown, California. (Simone Lueck / For The Times)

Visitors volition besides find there’s overmuch much to bash than hold 2 hours for a array astatine Pappy and Harriet’s. Weekend tourists tin drawback a taco astatine the Red Dog Saloon, browse locally made earthy bath products astatine Xeba Botanica, vessel successful a historical bowling alley oregon research the Berber-meets-cowboy store Soukie Modern. If you’re determination connected a Sunday morning, you tin adjacent prime up a twelve hand-boiled New York-style bagels if you bid ahead.

“It tin beryllium hard for america old-timers to spot each the changes,” said Gosen, who spins goat fibre into yarn extracurricular her soap store connected Mane Street astir weekends. “I don’t emotion each the Airbnbs and the residents who can’t spend housing. But astatine the aforesaid time, we’re present connected the workplace by ourselves astir of the week and connected the play we’re fortunate capable to spell into municipality and conscionable the astir astonishing radical from each implicit the world.”

Pioneertown Motel successful Pioneertown, California connected Sunday, September 7, 2025.

Developers, beware of the ‘Curtis Curse’

Pioneertown has ever been a strange, hybrid place: fractional fake, fractional real.

The assemblage was founded successful the mid-1940s by a consortium of entertainers that included Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and the Sons of the Pioneers, a fashionable singing radical astatine the clip that lent the municipality their name. It was conceived and led successful its aboriginal years by Dick Curtis, a 6-foot-3 histrion who appeared successful much than 230 movies and tv shows successful the ‘40s and ‘50s. Curtis dreamed of creating a imperishable occidental movie acceptable against the rugged backdrop of the Sawtooth Mountains that would besides relation arsenic a moving municipality with businesses that catered to movie crews and residents. The Pioneertown Corp. broke crushed successful 1946. Among its archetypal buildings were a onshore office, a quality parlor, a motel, 2 restaurants and a provender store — each with Old West facades.

Filming successful municipality mostly stopped successful the 1950s, but the country continues to connection visitors and residents a unsocial premix of phantasy and relation decades later. Some buildings similar the General Store, the Saddlery and the Post Office location businesses. Others, similar the jail, the livery and a barber store are conscionable facades — large for selfies but small else.

Over the years, radical with large dreams and constricted knowing of the challenges of gathering successful this peculiar agelong of godforsaken person tried and failed to bring large developments to the town, which contiguous has astir 600 residents. In the ‘60s, a car salesman from Ohio bought the Pioneertown Corp. and projected plans to make a monolithic godforsaken edifice with townhomes, apartments, lakes and play courses. He predicted it would yet gully a colonisation of 35,000. (The concern went bankrupt instead.) During the pandemic, a upland usher and supervising shaper for Red Bull Media frightened locals with a program to person 350 acres into an lawsuit abstraction with residences, a signaling studio, and an amphitheater that would clasp up to 3,000 people. The task was yet downgraded to a pricey Airbnb and by the clip it was completed, helium was nary longer portion of it.

The Film Museum successful Pioneertown offers a curated look astatine the movies and films changeable connected the Hollywood acceptable turned Western town.

Curt Sautter, who helps curate Pioneertown’s tiny movie past museum, believes the municipality has been protected from large improvement by what helium calls the Curtis Curse. “You tin beryllium palmy successful Pioneertown, but if you get greedy oregon you effort to bash thing that messes with the situation oregon the assemblage itself you volition fail,” helium said.

Locals cognize that maturation successful Pioneertown is inevitable, but they besides constituent to its limitations: the meager section h2o supply, the deficiency of a occurrence section and that determination is lone 1 roadworthy into and retired of town.

“The assemblage wants dilatory maturation that preserves the occidental quality of the municipality and is compatible with the godforsaken environment,” said Ben Loescher, an designer and president of Friends of Pioneertown, a nonprofit that supports the community.

Richard Lee of 29 Loaves sells freshly baked bagels extracurricular the Pioneertown Motel connected Sunday mornings.

What to bash successful Pioneertown: Bowling, bagels, bingo and more

Today you’ll find signs of measured maturation everyplace you look successful Pioneertown, making present a large clip to visit. Pioneer Bowl, a perfectly preserved 1946 vintage bowling alley with the archetypal murals by a Hollywood acceptable decorator connected its walls, has conscionable resurfaced its lanes and extended its hours. It’s present unfastened from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday done Saturday. A crippled volition outgo you $25 and is archetypal come, archetypal served. It utilized to beryllium intolerable to find meal successful town, but present you’ll find meal burritos, tacos and quesadillas astatine the Red Dog Saloon, which opens mundane astatine 10 a.m. On Sundays from 8:30 americium to 9:30 a.m., Richard Lee of 29 Loaves delivers his caller baked bagels to those who ordered them successful beforehand extracurricular the Pioneertown Motel. (The cinnamon-date bagels are particularly recommended).

Locals astatine the Red Dog Saloon successful Pioneertown, California. (Simone Lueck / For The Times)

Kids and selfie seekers volition bask the Pioneertown Petting Zoo wherever $10 volition bargain you 20 minutes with chickens, turkeys and a tiny horse. There is besides a small past depository to research and 2 aged occidental reenactment groups — Mane Street Stampede and Gunfighters for Hire — who look to beryllium entertaining themselves arsenic overmuch arsenic they are the audience. (Check their websites for up to day amusement times.) If you program ahead, you tin besides publication a hike with goats with Yogi Goats Farm for $95 a person.

Visitors mightiness besides see subscribing to the Pioneertown Gazette, a escaped play newsletter that Pioneertown Motel co-owner Mike French began publishing online successful 2023. In it helium compiles listings for dozens of concerts, performances, yoga classes and different events happening crossed the precocious desert. A idiosyncratic favourite is Desert Bingo astatine the Red Dog Saloon 6:30 p.m. connected Monday nights, wherever locals, visitors and transplants stitchery for a good-natured, foul-mouthed bingo crippled with a unrecorded DJ. One bingo committee volition outgo you $10 and the proceeds payment a section charity.

Pioneer Bowl successful Pioneertown was built successful 1946 to entertain movie crews. It has precocious expanded its hours.

Whether you’re readying to sojourn for an day oregon considering moving to the area, you’ll find that this Hollywood movie set, turned shade town, turned tourer curiosity, turned existent occidental municipality offers much to entertain locals and visitors than it has successful decades, without sacrificing the occidental vibe that drew its founders to the country astir 80 years ago.

“It’s the landscape, and that weird occidental mythology,” said Loescher. “It’s ever been afloat of individuals who are a small iconoclastic and don’t bash things the mean way.”

And nary substance however galore radical travel on who imagination of changing Pioneertown, the challenging godforsaken situation — and the Curtis Curse — volition apt support it that way.