Glenn Holland and J. Putnam Henck
Glenn Holland circa 1960
Glenn Holland was a developer from Crestline, California who established three Santa's Village theme parks. Born in 1918, Holland grew up during the Great Depression. His parents died by his eighteenth birthday, leaving him to care for his younger sister. As an adult, Holland wanted to give his children and other children the type of Christmas he only knew in his dreams.
"He wanted Christmas to be just magical," stated Holland's daughter, Pamela Holland Reece, 63, of Fallbrook, California, during a 2006 Chicago Tribune interview. "He always thought that children should have adventures and great happiness in their lives. He wanted to make that come true."
As the creative force behind the world’s first chain of theme parks, Holland was inspired to create a Santa Claus type fantasy land not only by his lack of a Christmas as a child, but the new roadside attractions being built in other parts of the country. Santa’s Village was by no means the first of its’ kind, but to fully understand Santa’s Village one must start at the beginning of the themed attraction concept. Years before Walt Disney in a sleepy little town in southern Indiana called Santa Claus, a post office, a Sunday morning comic and an entrepreneur sparked an industry. Santa Claus Town was the vision of Vincennes, Indiana entrepreneur Milton Harris, who saw the potential of Santa Claus, Indiana's unique name after its post office had been featured in Robert Ripley’s famous "Believe It or Not" cartoon. Harris leased almost all of the land in and around the town and secured sponsorships from leading national toy manufacturers. Santa Claus Town was officially launched with the dedication of Santa’s Candy Castle in 1935, and would quickly be expanded with the addition of the Toy Village and Santa’s Workshop. Santa Claus Town would serve as a strong influence for other Santa Claus-themed attractions that would later appear throughout the United States from New York to California.
Holland developed his Santa's Village concept after reading a Saturday Evening Post story about a similar project called North Pole in New York State. In early 1953, struck with inspiration, Holland sat at his kitchen table one day and started to sketch his idea of a Christmas fairyland filled with enormous candy canes, animals and gingerbread houses where all the magic of the holiday would come to life. Holland developed this idea into a working plan and began finding investors for his project. He traveled the country selling the Santa’s Village concept, $45 stock shares and eventually listed his new company, Santa’s Village Corporation, on the California Stock Exchange.
Holland set up a corporation that funded the park, and leased the land from the family of the general contractor J. Putnam Henck. Henck brought in a crew to build the 15 acre park on 220 acres of family land in Skyforest, California. Trees cut to clear the land were used to build the fantasy log cabins with rooftops covered in fake snow, giant candy canes, candles and gingerbread men.
Around the same time, Walt Disney was building Disneyland. So Holland contacted Disney, and the two men reportedly corresponded for a time. But while Disney was already established from his films, Holland was an unknown.
Glenn Holland was also aquatinted with the concept of Dick and Mac McDonald's restaurants. The McDonald brothers already had numerous restaurants in the San Bernardino area. Holland had heard about Ray Kroc's idea with the McDonald's for a national chain of fast food outlets. The story inspired Holland to create the first theme park chain, Santa's Village.
The first Santa’s Village opened Memorial Day in 1955, six weeks before Disneyland, in Skyforest near Lake Arrowhead in San Bernardino County, California. (Closed 1998). A second Santa’s Village opened in 1957 near Scotts Valley in Santa Cruz County, California. (Closed 1979). The last Santa's Village was opened in 1959 in the Chicago suburb of East Dundee and closed in 2006. All three parks were built by Henck Construction.
With the success of the two California parks, Holland ventured east to the Midwest in 1958 and landed in East Dundee, Illinois. Holland and Santa's Village Corporation built Santa's Village Dundee at a cost of one million dollars and opened the park on Memorial Day 1959. As with the other two Santa's Villages, the East Dundee version was an instant hit.
In 1961, Holland announced a new company called International Monorail Systems (IMS) with Santa’s Village Corporation holding 40% of the stock. IMS built the first suspended monorail in the United States at the Skyforest Santa’s Village. Holland started to spend more time on the monorail systems and promoted Charles L. Poe, the general manager of the Dundee park to Director of Operations of all three Santa’s Villages. By the end of the fiscal year, Santa’s Village Corporation was showing a loss. The loss was mainly at the Dundee park.
Despite the park's popularity, Holland had not planned for the freezing winter weather in Illinois. While the West Coast parks stayed open year-round, doing their best business in the weeks before Christmas, the Chicago area was too cold. Eventually, Santa's Village in East Dundee was in the odd position of being closed during the Christmas season.
To help with attendance, Holland with Santa's Village Corporation developed and built the Polar Dome Ice Arena at the East Dundee park. The Dome was part of an expansion called "The Polar Dome Project", which not only added the space age ice rink, but added some themed rides. The cost of the project never offset the benefit of the additions.
The miscalculation helped lead to the collapse of the company. Holland found himself stretched thin and took a leave of absence in 1963 to work on the monorail system for the upcoming World’s Fair in New York. By 1964, investors of Santa’s Village Corporation started to rebel. Losses to the company stood at $812, 864.00 by October. Santa’s Village Corporation was in danger of elimination due mainly to financial obligations to the Polar Dome. Chapter 11 bankruptcy was taken on the Polar Dome which was a separate corporation.
Holland was close to a nervous breakdown, according to his daughter. Heartbroken, he resigned and left the company. J. P. Henck assumed the leadership of Santa's Village Corporation. Henck told stockholders that the Dundee park or the Scotts Valley park must be sold to eliminate the huge financial burden.
In 1965 the East Dundee park and the Scotts Valley park were put up for sale. The East Dundee assets were sold to Everding Management of Addison, Illinois in 1966. The Scotts Valley park property was purchased by Santa Clara County California developer, Noorudin Billawalla and then leased back to Santa's Village Corporation. 
J. Putnam Henck circa 2005
In 1977 the original investors of Santa's Village Corporation filed for bankruptcy. The California parks were taken over solely by J. P. Henck by 1978. Henck sold the Scotts Valley park assets to land owner Noorudin Billawalla, but kept the Skyforest park under his new company Paceway Management.
Billawalla changed the Scotts Valley park's name to "The Village" and promoted it as an Arts and Crafts Fair. "The Village" failed to bring in the finances necessary to continue and in 1979 the Scotts Valley park closed for good. The park sat in disrepair and ruins for years. In the late 1990's the property was cleared and today Borland International sits on most of the site.
Henck continued to run the Skyforest park through the 1997 Christmas season. In 1998 the Skyforest park was officially closed and auctioned off. Part of Henck's decision to close the park was based on the passing of his wife, Pamela. In 2001, the 220 acre property (including the 15 acre Santa's Village site) sold for $5.6 million to Thomas Plott, owner of Plott Family Care Centers in Riverside and San Bernardino. Plott planned to reopen the park. He refurbished some of the buildings, but that's as far as he got. Plott died in 2005 and all the buildings have been left deteriorating.
Today, J. P. Henck still resides about a mile west of the original Santa's Village property in Skyforest, California.
Glenn Holland, who later became a real estate and amusement consultant, died in 2002 at the age 84.
"Where he (Holland) made the error was going on and doing the final one in Illinois. It was just not financially a good idea," said Reece, his daughter. "But he knew he had touched people with the parks. It was the most special thing he felt he had ever done."
