Brookroom

The Brookroom restaurant, featuring excellent food and service is where the brook follows through the dining room. The menu features "Farm Fresh Santa Cruz Mountain Food", choice steaks, fresh seafood and an emphasis on local ingredients, especially local wines. (The Brookroom received an Award of merit of representing Santa Cruz Mountain Wines.) Nightly specials, a children's menu and a full bar are also offered, making the Brookroom a fabulous settings for weddings, banquets, conferences, and parties large or small.In 1922 the owner of the Brookdale lodge Dr. F. K. Camp envisioned a dinning room built around the river that cut through the Brookdale grounds. Embankments were constructed to direct the flow and keep the creek in place, however Camp felt that they should not detract from the stream bed's natural appearance. The resulting terraces, lined with granite boulders, suggested a marvelous setting for dinning.This vision was carried out by the architect and landscaper Horrace Cotton whose design gained acclaim among the architects for so deftly integrating a rustic structure into the very fabric of the forest. The large structure are resembled a redwood log cabin with a whole log verandas, decorated with sticks tanglewood gingerbread. Inside, the terraces were supposed to protect the lodge from the rising water. For 70 feet the creek passed through the dining room under a large atrium skylight that allowed continued growth of the Woodwardia and other ferns. Cotton created and installed colored underwater lights. Diners could enjoy the unique spectacle of trout swimming by as they enjoyed this magnificent setting.The creek still flows, the trout still swim and the Brookroom continues to be popular place for wedding celebrations and family gatherings.