The best days lay ahead for Alice Kraus when her new groom, Ed Kraus, shot this color photograph on the first day of their honeymoon in July 1957.

Alas, the same can't be said of Hotel Lebec, or as it's called here, Lebec Lodge. Contributor Ron Kraus says his uncle Ed told him the hotel was in a "pretty run down condition" and described the desk clerk as "really odd."

"Despite the inauspicious start to their marriage, my Uncle Ed and Aunt Alice have been married for 55 years now," Ron Kraus writes in 2012.

According to Ridge Route historian Harrison Scott:

The Lebec Hotel was built in 1921 by Thomas O'Brien, a saloon keeper from Bakersfield, and Cliff Durant, an automobile manufacturer and airplane instructor from Oakland.

The hotel was built to resemble a French chateau. It was a playland for Hollywood executives and stars in its heyday. Clark Gable and his actress wife Carole Lombard, as well as gangster Benny "Bugsy" Siegel, frequented the Lebec Hotel.

Shortly after the hotel opened, Durant apparently tired of his investment and sold his interest to Foster Curry, son of the concessionaire at Yosemite, in 1922. Curry and his wife brought a series of lawsuits against O'Brien to rescind the sale, alleging that O'Brien had improperly instituted a foreclosure on Curry's note. Somehow O'Brien managed to gain control of the hotel as a result of an in-court settlement with Curry.

Over the years the hotel fell into disrepair. It was officially closed on November 13, 1968 in response to health department charges concerning its substandard water system and dilapidated condition. The hotel went into receivership and was acquired by the Tejon Ranch Co., which torched the hotel and demolished the remains on April 27, 1971, two weeks after acquiring the property.