Thank you Tatia for the kind words concerning Part 1, and for the additional information on Regina Torne. Ms. Torne has joined that select group of I Spy guest for whom there’s no such thing as too much information.
Getting back to our story, we hired a van and driver in the vicinity of Fort San Diego and made the semi-circular trip to the Las Brisas resort (with a stop along the way for certain members of the party to buy bathing suits). Traffic was heavy all the way, thinning a bit as we climbed toward Las Brisas.
In their book “I Spy: A History and Episode Guide to the Groundbreaking Television Series” Cushman and LaRosa describe Las Brisas. “Las Brisas became a home away from home for the men and women behind I Spy. The visually distinctive resort—tucked into the side of the mountain overlooking Acapulco Bay, with its multiple “casitas” (little houses), private swimming pools and pink jeeps to negotiate the winding roads—was a priceless find. Resort managing director Frank Brandstetter proved to be a very accommodating gentleman to the visiting Americans and their camera equipment. The resort was open for filming and offered the show a series of unique and memorable vistas.”
I glimpsed the beach and bay through the windows of the van, as they flashed into view between the high rise buildings. These glimpses matched scenes and images in my head from various Acapulco based I Spy episodes. We only had a few hours to kill and as I hadn’t done any homework, it would have been hopeless to try and seek out any matching locations. So it was straight on to Las Brisas.
We pulled up to the entrance and our driver (a very friendly and helpful woman) explained to the guy at the gate that her passengers wanted to look around the resort. As we were driving, just to make conversation, I explained to the woman that my reason for visiting the place was a forty year old TV series. She nodded politely but I don’t think my motivation particularly resonated with her. She thought Las Brisas was a beautiful place, and that was reason enough to check it out. She said it was a popular honeymoon location and was sometimes referred to by local wits as “Los Bambinos”.
We were instructed to ask in the lobby at the desk for permission to look around. The folks there seemed delighted to let us walk around as much as we wanted. In the lobby I noticed plaster plaques hanging on the wall with hand prints and signatures of former guests like Sylvester Stallone, Buzz Aldrin and Brenda Vaccaro. I explained in a previous post that I mistook Brenda for Arlene Golonka from “Pinwheel”. I thought I had found my first I Spy connection.
The building housing the lobby didn’t exist 40 years ago as is apparent by comparing these Then & Now photos taken from nearly the same viewpoint. The new lobby/visitor center was built right in the middle of the old driveway. However the hillside casitas still look about the same as is clear in the cropped Then & Now photos.
While our driver waited patiently in her van in the parking lot, we set off exploring. The roads are steep and it was hot. My impression from the Then & Now comparisons is that the resort is spiffier and more meticulously landscaped today. It had a wilder and less polished look in the time of I Spy. The pink-on-pink color scheme hasn’t changed. We encountered a number of employees working on gardening or landscaping, but only a handful of guests. The roads were mostly empty.
The second floor of the building in the foreground of the “now” photo above houses the Las Brisas deli where we stopped at the conclusion of our self-guided tour for an elegant snack of Pringles and Dos Equis.
Inside the deli.
Of course, what one remembers from those episodes are the swimming pools. Here are two views of the same land formation separated by 40 years.
Pools, pools and more pools.
What’s evident from the previous photo, and most especially the next one (because you can match up the contour at the top of the mountain range) is the proliferation of high rise buildings along the shore of the bay.
The Las Brisas pink jeeps were ubiquitous in the Acapulco episodes and they are still.
While walking the sometimes narrow paths of Las Brisas, we had to stay vigilant so as not to be run over by maintenance people tooling around the resort. I don’t think guests walk the roads much. They get ferried.
I doubt if guests drive themselves around in the manner of Kelly and Scotty. They seemed to have carte blanche when it came to use of the jeeps. That was probably a courtesy extended to the characters played by the lead actors of the visiting American TV production.
To remind us of where we started, here is a view of our temporary home as seen from Las Brisas, looking west across the bay. The star shaped white roof of Fort San Diego is evident just above and to the right of the ship.
As I walked around it wasn’t difficult imagining Kelly and Scotty lounging around one of the pools. And now we leave Las Brisas with one last view of the bay.
Jimmy
