Back in 1983, Apple's Macintosh team attended a retreat at the La Playa Carmel hotel in Carmel, California, where employee shenanigans resulted in a 30-year company gathering ban from the resort.

According to SFGate, the La Playa Carmel, which is located about two hours south of Cupertino, recently lifted the restrictions preventing Apple from using the spot for corporate retreats. Apple has already booked an upcoming meeting at the hotel.

laplaya
Frank Rose, author of "West of Eden: The End of Innocence at Apple Computer," details the trip in his book, calling it a "college beer blast," where the Macintosh team went skinny dipping and had a bonfire.

When [Elliot] was eating dinner in the La Playa's primly starched dining room and saw a dozen Macintosh people swimming nude in the lighted pool outside, he chuckled softly and went on with this meal, oblivious to the polite strangling sounds of the blue-haired ladies all around. He was, after all, the official guardian of Apple's corporate culture, and if this was what he was supposed to guard, he was ready for the task.

Following the hijinks, the Macintosh team was asked to leave and to never return, a ban that has been revoked after the hotel went through both a remodel and a change of ownership.

The new La Playa Carmel hotel offers ocean view hotel rooms, meeting facilities with team building activities like golf and sailing, lush gardens, and the infamous pool where Apple employees once skinny dipped.

Top Rated Comments

DTphonehome Avatar
157 months ago
...and a big-ass chess board!

No, that's a regular-sized chessboard in a tiny-ass garden.

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...and the infamous pool where Apple employees once skinny dipped.

I hope they've cleaned the filters since then. People were pretty hairy in the early 80's.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
camomac Avatar
157 months ago
I hope they do it again. Get drunk and party like it's 1983!!
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
duervo Avatar
157 months ago
It was a permanent ban, not a 30 year ban.

It ended 30 years later only because the hotel changed ownership/management, and the new powers-that-be decided to lift it, not because it "expired".

The wording makes it seem as if it was originally intended to last 30 years. It was intended to be permanent.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MyMac1976 Avatar
157 months ago
A penis was seen and this is America, so ban it was.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
need4speed Avatar
157 months ago
30 year ban for skinny dipping? Should've been fined instead.

It's the hotel's loss. They lost 30 years worth of skinny dipping revenue. :)
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
darklyt Avatar
157 months ago
Of course the board is set up wrong...
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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