Learning to handle the new technology of a motor car in 1930 was no easy feat, and it was even harder on the side of a 2,500-foot mountain. That summer, Clause and Martha were reportedly giving their new Model T a spin when Clause reversed over the steep bank, sending the car and the couple plunging down the mountainside. The couple somehow survived the horror, but Clause died three weeks later of a stroke, having never recovered from the crash. Martha died not long after.

In the years after Claus and Martha Meyers passed in the 1930s, the inn changed hands numerous times in the following years, largely maintaining its German theme. In the ‘60s, notable guests included Goldie Hawn and the Grateful Dead.

The property fell into the hands of a German American war hero later played on screen by Christian Bale. Dieter Dengler was a German-born U.S. Navy bomber pilot who was shot down over Laos, captured and imprisoned in the notorious Pathet Lao prison camp during the Vietnam War. After six months of torture, Dengler somehow escaped, becoming the only American to ever do so and survive the prison. After 23 days on the run in the jungle on the shores of the Mekong River, hallucinating through near starvation, Dengler was rescued by a U.S. Air Force plane. His story was adapted into Werner Herzog’s 2006 epic “Rescue Dawn.”