Saddle Peak Lodge
419 Cold Canyon Road
Calabasas, CA
Piuma Road
818-222-3888

After a soothing ride up the canyon with the sunroof wide open to the evening sky, four of us are seated outside on the upper terrace at Saddle Peak Lodge in Calabasas. It's heaven looking up at the trees, reveling in the soft breeze and the sound of a stream tumbling over rocks. Never mind that this last is a man-made water feature or that across the road, a complex of grandiose houses is going up; we're in the midst of nature -- nature with valet parking.

The rustic stone and timber lodge, built in 1920 and enlarged in 1983, has the same look it did in the '30s and '40s when Hollywood swells pointed their shiny new cars up Malibu Canyon Road for a romantic dinner with their latest conquest. The decor of rawhide-wrapped pillars, massive old lanterns and paintings of fleshy nymphs with doves hovering in front of their racier parts was kitschy then. It's kitschy now. But those big bent willow armchairs are awfully comfortable, and the candlelight seems to flatter everybody. The mood is jovial, as if we're all guests at some fantastical lodge in the mountains where the bookcases overflow with novels you might have liked to read 50 years ago.
2002 video tour (QuickTime)



Hours: Wed.-Fri., 6-9 p.m.; Sat., 6-9:30 p.m.; Sun., 6-9:30 p.m. (in winter from 5 p.m.). Sun. brunch, 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.