West Marin’s Marconi center begins long renovation project

A state park along Tomales Bay with a storied history — from its role in the pioneering days of wireless technology to becoming the home of an infamous Marin County cult — is entering a new chapter with major renovations underway.

Perched above Highway 1 near Marshall, the Marconi Conference Center State Historic Park is now used primarily as a retreat and conference center, along with hosting weddings and weekend getaways. The 62-acre property became a state park in 1989.

California State Parks and its private partners who manage the property recently began a yearslong renovation to breathe new life into the center’s lodges, suites and historic buildings — some dating back to 1914, when the property was used as a major radio communications hub by the Italian inventor and engineer Guglielmo Marconi.

“It’s an internationally significant site,” said Marin historian Dewey Livingston, who conducted one of the first historical studies of the state park. “It’s a really good thing that state parks recognized that and is doing what they can with their partners to make sure the place keeps standing for years to come. It’s just a really important and kind of hidden site.”

“It wasn’t until the late ’80s and ’90s when we started working on researching these places that the story started to come out. Otherwise, it was just a sleepy part of Marin County’s past that had been bypassed by modern technology,” Livingston said.

Under the management of the Nashville-based Oliver Hospitality hotel and restaurant management company, the park’s hotel and conference areas are being rebranded as the Lodge at Marconi. The state park’s name will remain unchanged.

“I think people are looking for a venue, not necessarily a conference center,” Oliver Hospitality co-founder Ethan Orley said. “I think the conference center as a name is a little bit dated. Nobody is going to get married at a conference center.

“In part, our naming is to recast an incredible property with an incredible history in a way that will attract new visitors and the community alike who have been coming for years,” Orley said.

The work is beginning with an initial $10 million renovation of the guest lodges, lobby and dining area. The lodge’s general manager, Bryon Parsons, said the interiors of all 45 rooms, the lounge, lobby, reception area and Redwood Dining Hall will be getting a “major facelift” during the next few months.

“We’re tearing everything out and starting from scratch,” Parsons said.

The hotel buildings were built in 1972 for the Synanon Foundation, which later became the Church of Synanon cult.

The foundation was founded by Charles Dederich initially as a drug rehabilitation program in the late 1950s before converting into a cult that attracted thousands of followers and millions of dollars in donations. The group disbanded and the property was seized in 1980 after Dederich was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder after two cult members placed a live rattlesnake in an attorney’s mailbox.

The Synanon properties at Marshall were seized and came under the management of California State Parks in 1989.

Construction is estimated to be completed by the fall.

The exterior of the lodges and main reception area, which were built in what’s called the “Third Bay Tradition” architectural style by Bay Area architect Ellis Kaplan, will remain while the interiors will be completely renovated with a more modern design, Orley said.

“You will see freshly painted buildings but we are maintaining the architectural integrity of what it was,” Orley said. “You’ll see updated landscaping and the rooms will be completely redone from top to bottom.”

The next phase of the renovations, which have no set start date, will focus on the older buildings built in 1914 by the Marconi Wireless Co. These buildings are now used as conference centers and are registered in the National Register of Historic Places.

The largest structure, a former 35-room residence for staff and families, will also eventually be converted to administrative offices, a potential radio museum and other uses, said California State Parks historian Noah Stewart. The building has not been in use since the park service took over management.

However, these projects will likely not be completed for several years given the scope of the project, the extent of the upgrades needed and required funding.

“It’s a balancing act when you’re dealing with historic properties that you want to bring up to more modern standards,” Stewart said.

The Marconi Wireless Co. was started by the Italian inventor and radio technology innovator, who was the first person to send wireless communication across open seas and won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909.

In his quest to encircle the earth with radio communication, Marconi sought to reach across the Pacific Ocean and selected western Marin as the place to do so, Livingston said.

Setting up a transmission station in Bolinas and a receiving station in Marshall on former ranch land, the stations were able to connect with a nearly identical station in the Hawaii territory to reach Japan.

“This is all setting the stage for all those sorts of wireless communications that we use today, including cellphone and internet,” Livingston said.

The station received a warm welcome from U.S. officials, including President Woodrow Wilson, when it opened in September 1914, but that changed with the onset of World War I.

Concerned with having a foreign-owned business controlling telecommunications — Marconi’s business being British-owned — the government had the stations seized by the U.S. Navy in 1917 and eventually transferred to a new entity, the Radio Corporation of America.

The Marshall station continued to operate in communications with ships crossing the Pacific Ocean. Decades later, it would receive one of the first broadcasts on the U.S. mainland during the attack of Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the distress signal of the first American ship lost in enemy action in World War II, Livingston said.

The Marshall station was shut down after the U.S. joined World War II.

“These events not only changed the direction of the RCA’s radio stations, they would change the direction of world history,” Livingston said, reading a passage from his upcoming book on western Marin and Tomales Bay history.