Bakker Outlines Plan for Desert Retreat

PALM SPRINGS — PTL founder Jim Bakker has revealed some details of his plans for a $2-billion religious retreat in the California desert near here to include a hotel, condominiums and recreational facilities.

In telephone interviews from his home here, Bakker said the project would sit on “the most fantastic parcel of land I’ve ever seen,” somewhere in the Coachella Valley desert area, about 100 miles east of Los Angeles. He declined to pinpoint the location but said the parcel is several square miles.

The project would include an all-weather indoor shopping complex with a Spanish-Mediterranean motif, a 1,000-room hotel to be called the Desert Grand, golf courses, condominiums and homes, a 5,000-seat television studio and stage complex and canals with boats.

Biblical Dramas

The plans also call for an area where towns in the Holy Land would be recreated and actors would re-enact biblical dramas in the streets, Bakker said.

“We’re planning at this time probably the most major re-creation of the Holy Land that has ever been done,” he said. Bakker announced plans for the retreat last week but did not provide details.

Bakker said he and more than a dozen financial backers, land developers and friends toured the parcel Friday, and stopped to eat a picnic lunch on the spot where the retreat’s hotel would sit.

He also said that the group met with local government officials to discuss the plan and specific details, such as water and sewer lines.

“We haven’t signed the final papers (for purchase), but we’re very close,” Bakker said.

Start by Summer

The design work is just getting under way and plans call for rough designs in about 30 days and ground breaking by summer, he said.

“Everything is falling together better than we anticipated,” he said.

Three major backers--including members of the corporate and banking communities--will be involved in financing the project, to be called Heritage Springs International, Bakker said.

If realized, the retreat would be larger than Heritage U.S.A., the religious theme park Bakker and his wife, Tammy, founded in Fort Mills, S.C., he said.

“It’s going to be staggering in size compared to what we’ve done in the past,” he said.

As for his personal finances, Bakker said he and his wife are scraping by on rapidly disappearing retirement funds and savings.

Short of Money

“We’ve got enough to maybe live a month or two and that’s it,” Bakker said. “So we really have to go to work.”

The project also includes plans to revive the “Jim and Tammy Show” for broadcast five times weekly. The project has energized Bakker after nearly a year of little activity that began last March with his resignation from PTL. The resignation was triggered by a scandal involving a sexual encounter in 1980 with former church secretary Jessica Hahn.

Bakker turned PTL over to the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who resigned in October after PTL filed for bankruptcy.

Bakker said his plans for a new California television ministry and retreat do not rule out a possible return to PTL, but for now his sights are focused on his latest project.