Movies shot on site
A number of movies have used the Lake Norconian Club grounds as a movie set. The resort was so popular for shooting movies that a replica was created on a Hollywood set. Here is a listing of movies known to have been shot at the resort.
Top Speed starring Joe E. Brown
Release Date: August 24, 1930
The funniest comedy in ages and ages - two clerks pose as society playboys in a swanky summer hotel, and the laffs and fun that result top all records for speed! (original ad) Great scenes of speedboats on the Norconian lake, and the hotel grounds.
Their Own Desire starring Robert Montgomery and Norma Shearer
Release Date: December 27, 1929
A romance drama where the daughter of a rich author and polo player who is putt off to all men when her father decides to divorce and remarry. She escapes to the Lake Norconian Club to recover - only to meet and fall in love with a new man - who happens to be the son of the woman her father is about to marry. For her acting in Their Own Desire, Norma Shearer was nominated for an Oscar in 1930 for Best Actress in a Leading Role and ultimately won - but for another picture for which she was nominated during the same year entitled The Divorcee (1930). Best Picture that year was All Quiet On The Western Front.
Love in the Rough starring Robert Montgomery and Dorothy Jordam
Release Date: September 6, 1930
A shipping clerk in a department store is pressed into service as a golfing instructor by his boss, once he discovers the clerk is a champion golfer. He also enters him in the tournament at the bosses club - which happens to be the now destroyed Lake Norconian Golf Course. Golfing takes a back seat to love when the clerk finds Love In The Rough.
Walking on Air starring Ann Southern
Release Date: September 11, 1936
Kitt's family doesn't approve of her recently divorced boyfriend, so Kitt hires a radio singer to act as an obnoxious french count to nudge the family to warm to her true love rather than the obnoxious phony - only love foils her plans, but in the best possible way.
Major Historical Figures
REX BRAINARD CLARK - Born 1876, in Detroit, Clark was the son of an actuary, sang in the church choir and was ambitious. He married Grace Scripps, but did not get along with his new father-in-law, the powerful, newspaper founder James Scripps. Barred from the Scripps family business, Rex Clark started a large stationary store but after some noted success went bankrupt and suffered a nervous breakdown. To help her husband recover and perhaps escape the glare of her father, Grace Clark took her husband west to La Jolla, California to stay with her uncle famed publisher E.W. Scripps. The Clarks loved California and decided to stay. Upon his recovery Rex demonstrated a talent for land speculation and development. Eventually Rex and Grace, with their three children Rex, William, and Ellen, settled in Julian, California to raise cattle, apples and start a freight company. It was in Julian where Clark began his longtime affair with Emma "Jimmie" Snyder and her move to Los Angeles prompted yet another Clark Family relocation to Pasadena and the acquisition of Norco.
GRACE MESSINGER CLARK - It was likely Grace Clark's Scripps family inheritance and trust fund that in part or perhaps entirely financed the building of Norco and the Norconian Resort. An adventurous individual, she was the first woman to drive an automobile in Detroit and Sierra Street in Norco was so named for her founding membership in the Sierra Club.
CAPTAIN CUTHBERT GULLEY - "Bert" to his closest friends served in the Engineers Corps during World War I; afterward he was forever known as "Captain Gulley". Serving as Norco's Chief Engineer on and off for over 40 years, he was responsible for laying out the streets of fledgling community and between 1921 and 1923 completely upgraded the area water system installing new pumps, lines and reservoirs.
G. STANLEY WILSON - Designed the Pavilion, chauffeurs quarters, laundry and garage.
DWIGHT GIBBS - (on left) Designed main hotel and bath house.
A.B. HEINSBERGEN - Designed interiors.