Secret Societies | The Bohemian Club/Grove

The Bohemian Grove had frequent visits by such prominent entities as Presidents Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge, artists represented only a minute fraction of the Grove’s regular visitors, with Senators, bankers, and prominent diplomats soon coming to dominate the booze-soaked discourse and atmosphere. Alliances of global significance were forged; plans were laid; and plots were hatched that came to designate Bohemian Grove as less a relaxing weekend getaway as some of the most significant blueprints for social engineering as we know it. In 1929, a 40-foot statue of an owl, sculpted by noted Armenian-American sculptor (and Grove president) Haig Patigian, came to serve as a central focus of Bohemian Grove and has been associated as the most visible emblem of this secretive clique ever since.