Sportsmen's Lodge

Operating under various names (including "Hollywood Trout Farms") since the 1880s, the Sportsmen's Lodge is a San Fernando Valley landmark and remains a popular spot for celebrations, dinners and public events.

Located in the heart of the Valley's studio district, the Sportsmen's Lodge was a popular gathering spot for cast and crew in old Hollywood, including Clark Gable, Bette Davis, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Spencer Tracy Katharine Hepburn and Eddie Van Halen.

[1][2] According to one account, the Lodge's trout ponds "drew luminaries such as Tallulah Bankhead, Lena Horne, Bette Davis, and Joan Blondell, who baited hooks with liverwurst and drank martinis as waiters served dinner on white tablecloths.

[3] According to the Studio City Sun, the Los Angeles Health Department ended the era of fishing at the Lodge when the 1971 San Fernando earthquake diverted the natural spring.

[11] Other celebrities known to have stayed or hung out at the Sportsmen's Lodge include Marlon Brando, Doris Day, Gene Autry, Tim McGraw, David Lee Roth, Billy Bob Thornton, Randy Travis, and Trisha Yearwood.

Motion pictures and TV shows are occasionally shot around the waterfalls, lagoons, lily ponds, swans and gazebos,[7] and recording stars and their entire road crews regularly stay.

[8] One writer recently noted of the Lodge: "It's unexpected, finding a mountain chalet bar complete with massive stone fireplace, antique wooden snow-skis, log-beamed ceilings, and moose antlers here in the midst of strip malls and suburbia.

"[8] Nevertheless, the spacious rooms overlooking an Olympic-size heated pool in the courtyard, the old-fashioned Patio Cafe and neighboring Caribou restaurant and Muddy Moose Bar remain popular.

[8] LosAngeles.com says: "This contemporary Los Angeles hotel sits on 8 acres (32,000 m2) of gorgeous landscaped grounds, featuring waterfalls, California native plants and beautiful wildlife, including swans and other waterbirds.

In 2002, the Studio City Residents Association, backed by the Los Angeles Conservancy, submitted an application to designate the Lodge's banquet center as a Historic-Cultural Monument.

[3] The Conservancy featured the Sportsmen's Lodge as one of just a handful of docent-led stops on its driving tours of the San Fernando Valley—an event that attracted 1,000 tour-goers and won national media attention.