You don’t stumble into Jacumba Hot Springs by accident. Sitting against the boulder-strewn edge of the Sonoran Desert, it’s just shy of the Mexican border and an hour east of San Diego. Here, the air is dry and charged. The sun feels closer. And just beyond the hum of Old Highway 80, a new kind of oasis is taking root… one that feels less built and more remembered.
At the heart of this revival is the Jacumba Hot Springs Hotel, a 1950s motor lodge reincarnated with humility and vision by three unlikely desert stewards: Corbin Winters, Melissa Struke, and Jeff Osborne. Friends in life, and partners in work (and now place), the trio closed on the property and 155 surrounding acres in October 2020, just a few months after Melissa discovered the hotel during a meandering pandemic-era desert drive. Shortly after, they, along with their families, relocated to the tiny, eccentric town of Jacumba.
“We wanted the design and architecture to fit into the natural landscape and feel like maybe it has always been here,” explains Winters, who, along with Strukel, serves as Chief of Design. The hotel’s new iteration does just that. Its footprint mirrors the original structure, and even the three hot spring pools retain their classic shapes. Rounded walls, built-in adobe-style furniture, and unlacquered brass fixtures nod to desert vernaculars from Morocco, Mexico and the Southwest. Everything’s been selected to weather with time, not against it.
The transformation is part of a broader effort by their hospitality group, We Are Human Kind, to resurrect the hotel, of course, but also the spirit of Jacumba itself. Once a glamourous destination in the 1920s and ’30s, the town welcomed Hollywood stars like Clark Gable and Marlene Dietrich, who travelled via the Impossible Railroad and Old Highway 80. But when Interstate 8 bypassed the town in the ‘60s, tourism dried up and Jacumba faded into near-obscurity. By the ’80s, it’d practically become a ghost town.
Jacumba’s waters, however, never stopped flowing. The three onsite mineral pools at the hotel are fed directly from underground, untouched by chemicals and rich in naturally occurring minerals like hydrogen sulfide, silica, lithium, bicarbonate and more, that soothe the body and soften the skin. Certified by the Balneology Association of North America, the water is alkaline (above pH 10) and historically used to treat everything from rheumatological disorders to inflammation and anxiety. The Ritual Pool, open to guests, members and day pass holders, is a deeply communal space. The other two pools, Solstice and Echo, reserved for hotel guests and members, are made for quiet immersion and, ideally, forgetting of time.
Guests are gently encouraged to leave behind modern trappings; chemical sunscreens are banned to preserve the ecosystem, replaced by a locally made, organic version that’s also vegan and gluten-free. There are no televisions in the rooms. You’re here to tune out and tune in.
The culinary program, naturally, is just as thoughtful as the rest of the place. The restaurant features an “international high desert” menu, sourcing produce from the surrounding Imperial Valley, seafood from Baja California, and ingredients from specialty regional producers. Meanwhile, the cocktail bar, dimly lit and feeling like something out of an old movie, serves up cold-pressed juices, botanical tinctures, tonics, and wines from Valle de Guadalupe.
Equally as impressive as the hotel itself is the trio’s civic ambition. Sure, they renovated the hotel, but they’re also restoring a town, including the revival of Jacumba Lake, once a local gem. Collaborating with native elders, conservationists and biologists, they’ve worked to return the lake to its natural state. On the property, the original 1920s bathhouse ruins have been reimagined as a cultural centre with weekly candlelit concerts, artisan markets and open-air gatherings. A garden is planned next, meant to nourish both the hotel kitchen and the community pantry.
Despite the polish, nothing here feels overly curated. There’s dust. There’s wind. And there’s the realness of a place that refuses to be tamed. Jacumba isn’t being remade into a resort, it’s simply being reawakened as itself. The land still belongs to the Kumeyaay people, whose presence predates tourism and trend. The sense of luxury here is earned: the silence, the connection, the space.
For Corbin, Melissa, and Jeff, the work isn’t over. But they’ve already succeeded in doing something few hospitality projects manage: creating a space where both locals and travellers feel like they’re returning rather than arriving. A place where the water heals, the past breathes, and time, for once, doesn’t matter.
