Back to the future: Will this California prison become a luxury hotel again?

Before it became a prison, the California Correctional Facility in Norco was a luxury hotel, sanitorium and Navy hospital.

When it closes next year, Norco city leaders hope to restore it as an upscale resort again. But that plan faces complications that range from renovating the Art Deco architecture and remediating asbestos, to concerns about layoffs of correctional staff.

The prison is on track to close in 2026, after the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced this month that it’s no longer needed because of the state’s falling prison population.  It will be the fifth to shut down during Newsom’s administration, and its closure could save the state $150 million.

Norco Councilmember Kevin Bash is the city’s unofficial historian, and wrote about the facility’s colorful past in his book “The Norconian Resort.” 

“People don’t even know how magnificent this is,” Bash said. “It literally could be the Mission Inn on a hill, looking over a lake, on hundreds of acres.”

Rex Clark, who founded the city of Norco, built the Norconian after discovering hot water sulfur springs, which are believed to have therapeutic benefits. The resort debuted on Feb. 2, 1929 with a “star-studded grand opening” showcasing amenities including boating, an airfield, horseback riding, mineral baths, tennis, golf and swimming, according to the Lake Norconian Club Foundation.

“He decided to build the greatest resort on the West Coast,” Bash said. “Thousands of people showed up. It was a huge success. Unfortunately 1929 was not the best year to open a resort, because the Great Depression hit.”

The resort closed, but during World War II the property gained a new purpose.  On December 8, 1941, the day after the Pearl Harbor attack, the Norconian reopened as a Naval hospital.

“It then became the Pacific Theater hub for polio, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever, and a paraplegic center,” Bash said.

Doctors from the Mayo Clinic joined Sister Elizabeth Kenny, an Australian nurse who pioneered polio treatments, to treat sick and wounded service members, Bash said. In 1947, a group of injured veterans established the sport of wheelchair basketball as a team called “The Rolling Devils.”

In the 1950s, part of the facility was converted for use as a missile laboratory, Bash said. A decade later it became a drug rehabilitation center, and in the 1980s it began housing inmates as a medium security prison.

After the prison closes there are various options to renovate the property, Bash said: “It could be a resort, hotel. It could be office buildings or townhouses.”

Of course, that would take some work. Some of the World War II barracks were made from an asbestos compound called cemesto, which would require remediation.

Meanwhile, parts of the original facility have fallen into disrepair. Photos show water damaged halls, crumbled tiles and collapsing painted ceilings. The original Norconian Hotel is considered abandoned, Bash said, “which means you allow this magnificent building to deteriorate from the inside out. It’s demolition by neglect.”

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not respond to a request from CalMatters for details of its closure plans. Their website states that there are now 1,191 staff and about 2,766 people incarcerated at the institution, and it will shut down in fall, 2026.

Bash said he and other local officials want to get an inventory of the facility and its contents to preserve historic artifacts and fixtures. He’s wary of a worst case scenario if the prison closes without plans for the next steps.

“What happens if the state just walks away and doesn’t protect it?” Bash said. “It could become the largest graffiti haven, crime-infested, squatter-filled location in Riverside County.”

For more than a decade the Norco City Council has called for closing the prison, Bash said. But they’ve moderated that recently out of concern for the effects on its workers. Labor groups representing state employees who work there have denounced the closure, saying it would damage careers and the community, the Sacramento Bee reported. 

“The people that work there are our friends,” he said. “They are part of the community, we get along with them. Our position is tempered with the fact that we know so many of these people. That is why we’re stepping back.”

If it does shut down as planned, he said, Norco is ready to step in to help restore the property and seek investors to spruce it up. 

“Overwhelmingly people want to reclaim the Norconian and bring it back to its glory days,” he said. “They really want to have a resort.”