Highway Star

Part authentic Old West, part Potemkin village, Sierra Highway remains frozen in time in part because its rundown bars and motels are used as “functioning props” by the entertainment industry.

Here is where reality and movies become seamlessly intertwined: A fleabag motel is a fleabag motel, sort of. Although the joint rents rooms, the scuffed paint is deliberate--the studios roughed up the exterior to get that Bates Motel look.

Up the road, a roadside dive is a roadside dive, but the rustic look? Well, the “stone” walls are plastic props.

“Everyone has something to do with studios. Even the water man is renting police cars,” said Shirley Grantham, manager of the Sierra Pelona Motel in Saugus.

Until the Antelope Valley Freeway opened in 1963, Sierra Highway was the main route out of town to the High Desert.

There were once at least 27 bars between Soledad Canyon and Acton, said Jim Vojtech, who manages the Sierra Inn in Agua Dulce. But when the freeway came in, traffic--and business--dried up, and a creeping ghost-town effect began to set in.

Enter the film crews. At the Halfway House Cafe in Saugus, owner Ruth Lima is busy booking everyone from “Melrose Place” to movies and magazine shoots.

Even the austere Interdenominational Christian Retreat has gotten into the act. Founded as a refuge for abandoned wives in the 1930s, today the retreat is used by both churches and production companies.

It’s suited to westerns, said manager Viola Hoover. But “we have to pick and choose. With this kind of work,” she said, nodding toward the chapel, “you don’t want just anything.”