Pine Mountain Club is an unincorporated community in southwestern Kern County, California. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 2,422. The first announcement was made from Houston, Texas, in April of that year when the company said it would develop "more than 1.1 million acres of land in Arizona and Southern California." Tenneco was the Bakersfield-based western land-development arm of Tenneco, Inc., of Houston.
About half that acreage was to be in Kern County, where the projects would include the residential development of 6,500 acres surrounding the then-new California State College near Bakersfield and 3,200 acres in the Los Padres National Forest, also mostly for residences (Pine Mountain Club). The land was part of a 3,200-acre tract of pine forest and meadowland, formerly a private preserve.
Tenneco West was a Bakersfield subsidiary that administered all the western holdings of Tenneco, "the parent, Houston-based, multi-industry company."
<blockquote>Adjacent to the clubhouse will be a nine-hole executive golf course[,] and other recreational facilities are a heated swimming pool, archery range, volleyball and basketball courts, a lake stocked with fish and a community barbecue area.
The development's sixth and final section, on a plateau some thousand feet higher than the clubhouse, went on sale in March 1973.
Mil Potrero Highway
Tenneco West improved a "winding, steep, one-lane dirt road" called Mil Potrero west from Pine Mountain Club to California State Highway 33 into a "comfortable, convenient and safe way . . . to view what is generally regarded as Southern California's most strikingly beautiful scene." The cost for the 6.5-mile segment was estimated at nearly a million dollars. John E. Sommerhalder, the company president, said the road opened up "a large segment of the [[Los Padres National Forest|[Los Padres National] forest]] that, until now, has been almost inaccessible."
<blockquote>The job was unusually difficult, partly because of the mountainous terrain and partly because of protective and restorative measures taken to reduce to a minimum the disturbance to the natural surroundings. . . . The project had to conform to the specifications and requirements of both Kern County and the U.S. Forest Service. In effect, it is already a public road, although Tenneco must maintain it for a year before the formal dedication as a public road can take place.
Fruition
By 1988, Pine Mountain Club had a small commercial district with about forty businesses, ranging from an Exxon gas station to a place called "Pheasants by Frank." According to the Newhall Signal, the district was "more or less shut down on Mondays and Tuesdays . . . because there are so many people with weekend homes that the stores choose to stay open Saturday and Sunday."
On July 31, 2021, the community celebrated its fiftieth birthday with a barbecue picnic on blankets spread beneath the trees next to the golf course. Also noted was the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Mil Potrero Mutual Water Company.