Our Zorrogarden is named in respect of The 1935 Zorro Garden nudists exhibition in San Diego California. The name is iconc to us, because the nudist exhibition of 1935 is relatively unknown. Many have no idea such an exhibition even took place. Sadly only a few photographs and flyers remain offering a glimpse of the magnificent beauty of the actresses, actors and set. (Yes I said set, the original zorrogarden of 1935 was an artistic rendition of a nudist colony)
The Zorrogarden project is an area inside the club grounds. It's slated to be the center point of the club. Hosting the swimming pool, hot tub, Jacuzzi, sauna, and showers, as well as the restroom.
Zorrogarden will be around a 3 to 6 acre area that's roughly center of the Club grounds, consisting of 33 Acres hence the name Club 33 naked.
We feel the namesake Zorrogarden gives our club a certain retro feel of that era, and offers us an opportunity to recount the history of the original Zorro Garden, and a chance to touch on the history of nudism in the US.
Nude Recreation in the United States had become fairly popular during the 1930s. udging from the photographs, I would guess the participants were Blue Collar lower to upper middle-class Americans, it seems the popularity in nude Recreation continued to rise until the mid 1960s. This middle-class,Blue collar nude Recreation declined about the same time the hippie counterculture movement arose. I suspect, it was not a coincidence. Rather, Blue Collar nudists probably wanted to distance themselves of perceived association with the hippies counter culture. Since casual nudity was the only thing the two factions had in common.
(As a side note: Dave McGowan author of The Laurel Canyon conspiracy had some fascinating research on the origins of the hippies counterculture movement. The "movement" may not have been as organic as we believed.)
Many recreational nudist resorts of the 30s to the 60s (and onward) were in remote rural areas, without power, as is this nudist club. So our retro feel is actually genuine.
Where naked, and nature collide.
One of my favorite pictures of zorrogarden.
The mystery of one r, or two in Zor(r)o Garden... Balboa Park seems to spell Zoro with a single r, even their Facebook page uses the single r. However, all of the flyers, and photographs I have seen from the 1935 exhibition spell Zorro with two r's. (with the exception of one). You may note the promotional title on the picture above is indeed spelled with two r's.
I'm unclear of why the promoters of Zorro Garden would have opted to spell Zorro with two r's I suspect they may have had some sort of copyright intentions in mind.
But just as a hunch I checked for domain registration under the spelling of two r's . (As the promoters had spelled it). Sure enough, it had not been registered, so I registered it, to use for this Club. We consider ourselves extremely lucky to reuse the namesake. And as the original promoters had spelled it! www.ZorroGarden.com
It's indeed, quite the sign of good fortune!
The zorrogarden domain is set to redirect to the main Club domain www.Club33Naked.com
So either name will bring you directly to the Club's main page.
Alpha the robot kidnapping Queen Zorine as part of the exposition. And right posing probably with Balboa Park staff..
This is alpha the robot posing with women that were probably the actresses in the nudists exposition. The date on the photographs is 1930, I suspect it's incorrect since the exposition was from 1934 and ended in 1935.
We are still building this site and this page so check back later for more info
Here's a PDF file I found of Zoro Gardens, it seems to be copyrighted about the time the exposition ended, so I'm not sure what its purpose was.I believe I found it on the San Diego historical society website. In any case it's an excellent piece of history.
Notice Zoro is spelled with a single r, that leads me to believe it was printed by the direction of Balboa Park and not by the exhibit managers.
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