The first two surprises when you roll Old Highway 80 toward this dry and quiet Sonoran Desert town might be steam and music.

Steam rises from two pools at the newly reborn Jacumba Hot Springs Hotel. Music leaks from the ruins of the hotel’s bathhouse, where weekend performances are staged.

Tonight is a torch song from long ago, sung by an acoustic duo for a small, rapt, eclectic audience; Hipsters in their 30s, retirees in their 70s, desert rats and spa enthusiasts all sit under the clear skies as night falls. The roofless building is topped by several million boulders and a tall fence stretching into the hills.

These are the properties California dreams are made of, and the resulting landscape draws visitors to an outpost 70 miles southeast of downtown San Diego.

“This is a sanctuary from the stressors of the city. Everything seems to disappear here,” co-owner Melissa Strukel said recently.

Now there are a few more surprises: The town of Jacumba Springs has had good luck for decades. This tall fence, 650 meters south of the hotel, is the Mexican border, where undocumented immigrants regularly cross and where a crisis flared last year. And the owners of the hotel are new to the city and to work.

“Everything is the first time,” Strukel said.

Four years ago, early in the COVID shutdown, Strukel, a veteran San Diego designer and special event rental entrepreneur, decided to take a drive.

He found himself standing in front of a shabby old motel in a town he had never noticed before.

He was so impressed, in fact, that he climbed over a wall to get a better look.

“I knew right away that I belonged here,” Strukel said.

He soon learned that the motel was for sale; But there was a problem. The owner wanted to sell it as a 150-acre package along with most of the city’s commercial properties: a gas station (without gas), several houses and storefronts, a ruined bathhouse, and a pile of garbage that was once a man-made lake. .

Undaunted, Strukel recruited his business partner, Corbin Winters, and they created a plan.

They would hire their friend Jeff Osborne, a former client and real estate veteran. They would transform the 24-room motel and restaurant into a resort with 18 rooms, two suites, a restaurant, a bar, and a global desert vibe, drawing on influences from Mexico to Marfa to Morocco.

They would refill the hot springs to take advantage of the “silky texture” of alkaline water, refill the lake, hire a senior general manager for the hotel, and use the homes as vacation rentals, including two with their own bathtubs.

They will build a new sense of community in Jacumba Springs, where the population is 540, the median age is around 62, and median income and property values ​​are among the lowest in the county. The nearest full-service grocery store is 45 minutes away; the nearest public school is a few miles down the road; The nearest legal border crossing is an hour away in Tecate.

“At first I said ‘oh, no way,'” Osborne recalled.

But Osborne, 38, who has several years of house flipping and short-term rental management experience, gave the matter some more thought. He went into town, spent a night in a tent by the lake, and changed his mind.

An agreement was reached by October 2020. Osborne, We Are Human Kind Inc. He said the trio doing business as paid more than $1.6 million but less than $3.9 million and declined to be more specific.

Unlike many hotel owners, all three moved to the city and took on important roles in a community short on resources and long on characters.

“This community was the end of the line for a long time,” said Sam Schultz, 69, who lives with eight dogs and at least 12 cats in Desert View Tower on the city’s east side.

On any given day, migrants may illegally cross the nearby border by climbing over a fence that starts, stops, and changes height as a result of changing policies and rocky slopes.

But most of the time, those crossing the border are quickly met and taken away by Border Patrol agents who constantly roam the dirt roads and highways.

“I haven’t seen a single person cross the road for a few weeks,” said Osborne, who lives in a stone house on a knoll known as Snob Hill. “I live less than 300 meters from the border… and I don’t lock my doors.”

During the two days I spent in the city, I did not see anyone crossing the street. But I met many neighbors.

At Exotic Desert Hideaway — aka the hotel bar — you might run into Roman Wrosz, a 68-year-old inventor and longtime local who flies gliders through the otherwise lonely Jacumba airport.

Along the highway east of town you’ll likely encounter Coyote, the 67-year-old junkyard owner with his booming baritone voice and a truck with a sign saying “UFO finding and repair.”