Crime Scene and Trauma Cleanup in Brookdale, CA

Brookdale is a census-designated place in Santa Cruz County, tucked into the redwood-forested San Lorenzo Valley on Highway 9 between Boulder Creek and Ben Lomond, at an elevation of 405 feet.

Brookdale began as a logging settlement known first as Clear Creek and then as Brookville, and by 1870 it was the site of the Grover Lumber Mill, when logging was the dominant industry throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains.

In 1900 the mill was bought by James Harvey Logan, a Santa Cruz judge famous as the breeder of the loganberry, who turned the spot into a creekside resort of cabins and campsites and established the Brookdale post office in 1902.

Brookdale's landmark is the Brookdale Lodge, famous for its Brook Room restaurant, where Clear Creek itself flows right through the dining room - the lodge was built around the stream after 1922.

The Brookdale Lodge has had a hard-luck history, suffering major fires in 1956 and again in 2009, followed by years of neglect and abandonment before new owners began restoring it.

Brookdale had a population of 2,043 at the 2020 census, up from 1,991 in 2010 - the first census in which Brookdale appeared as a census-designated place.

Brookdale had roughly 800 households at the 2010 census, and the census reported that 100 percent of its residents lived in households.

The Brookdale CDP covers about 3.8 square miles of Santa Cruz Mountain terrain along Clear Creek and the San Lorenzo River corridor.