Lucerne Valley is the High Desert at its most wide open. East of Apple Valley on Highway 18, past the last of the tracts, the valley opens into big-sky ranch country under the north face of the San Bernardino Mountains. This is where buyers go for acreage, quiet, and a real night sky.
The valley is ringed by the Granite Mountains, the Ord Mountains and the San Bernardinos, with two dry lakebeds — Lucerne Dry Lake and Rabbit Springs Dry Lake — spread across its floor. Its best-known landmark is Chimney Rock, a registered California Historical Landmark on the valley's edge that marks the site of an 1867 battle between settlers and local Native Americans, remembered as the last such fight in the Mojave Desert. Ranching, and later mining and cement in the surrounding hills, built the community that is here today.
Unincorporated and rural, Lucerne Valley is a place of large parcels — five, ten, forty acres — with horse properties, off-grid and solar homes, and a self-reliant community that has been here a long time. Highway 18 and Old Woman Springs Road (Highway 247) meet at the center of town, and Highway 18 continues up the mountain to Big Bear, which is close enough that some residents treat the lake and the ski slopes as their backyard.
The community center on Old Woman Springs Road is the town's gathering place. The Lucerne Valley Unified School District runs the local schools from elementary through high school.
Lucerne Valley Unified School District
Lucerne Valley Community Center
33187 Old Woman Springs Rd, Lucerne Valley, CA 92356
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