Boulder Oak Arcade · 700 sq ft Game Room at Mountain Retreat · Ramona, CA

At Mountain Retreat · Ramona, California

Boulder Oak Arcade

Elevation 1,545 feet ELEVATION 1,545FT

An arcade you can sit down in.

Seven hundred square feet at Mountain Retreat. The machines, air hockey, foosball and darts on one side. A long table, a booth and a big sectional on the other.

See the layout Stay at Mountain Retreat
700square feet
Ninearcade machines
75-inchtelevision and Xbox
1,545feet of elevation

700 square feet

Built like a pub, plays like an arcade.

Boulder Oak Arcade is the game room at Mountain Retreat. One half is an arcade: nine arcade machines, air hockey, foosball and a dart board. The other half is a lounge: a long table, a booth in back, and a big sectional in front of a 75-inch television with an Xbox Series S.

It runs all day for the children and stays open all evening for everyone else.

Four arcade cabinets along the wall under blacklight: Midway, NBA Jam, Street Fighter II and Space Invaders, with oak barrels between them, a lit dart board on the left and the neon ARCADE sign above framed posters.
The arcade wall under the blacklight

Something for everyone

  • For the kids Nine arcade machines
  • For the competitors Air hockey, foosball and darts
  • For game night A 75-inch TV and an Xbox with four controllers
  • For the grown-ups An NES built into the booth

The seat map

Stand-up arcade. Sit-down lounge. Both, in one room.

A normal arcade is standing room only. This room is an arcade and a lounge, both. Play on one side, settle in on the other, and everyone is still in the same room.

Seat map of Boulder Oak ArcadeA floor plan drawn from the owners' layout. Along the top wall: air hockey, the dart board, four arcade machines, then the kitchen counter with the retro blue fridge and matching microwave. A real Rubik's Cube sits on the left wall. One more arcade machine stands by the storage room, and four small ones sit on the back of the booth: nine in all. Foosball stands in the middle. On the sit-down side, bar seating runs behind an L-shaped couch that wraps the coffee table and faces the 75-inch television on the right wall. The bottom-left corner is storage, with no guest access.STORAGENo guest access12345STAND UP6789SIT DOWN10

Stand up

  1. Nine arcade machines
  2. Air hockey
  3. Foosball
  4. A dart board
  5. A real Rubik’s Cube

Sit down

  1. Bar seating
  2. The booth, with an NES built in
  3. The couch, with checkers on the coffee table
  4. The 75-inch television and Xbox Series S, with four controllers

And

  1. The kitchen counter, with a retro blue fridge and matching microwave

Drawn from our own layout, not to scale. Storage, bottom left, is closed to guests.

Why the long table is bar height

It sits right behind the sectional, and it is high enough to see over the people on the couch in front of the TV. Whoever is at the table still has the screen.

Pull up a stool for board games, or to keep half an eye on the game on the big screen.

Side view: a person on a stool at the long table sees over the heads of the people on the sectional to the television on the far wall. Stool Eight on the couch 75-inch TV

Stand up

The arcade side

Pick a machine, grab a mallet, or step up to the line. Everything on this side is played on your feet.

Friends playing the Midway, NBA Jam and Street Fighter II cabinets under the neon ARCADE sign and framed posters, with a friend on a white stool at the counter.
Friends at the machines
  1. P1

    Nine machines

    Nine arcade machines: four along the back wall, one on the far wall, and four small ones on the back of the booth.

  2. P2

    Air hockey

    Two mallets, one puck, and a rematch whenever somebody asks for one.

  3. The foosball table with chrome players, in front of the wall and the sectional. P3

    Foosball

    Two players, or four if everyone shares the rods.

  4. P4

    Darts

    A dart board on the wall, with a throw line on the floor.

Sit down

The lounge side

The other half of the room is for sitting down. There is a seat at the table, a seat in the booth and a seat on the couch, and all three are in the same room as the games.

A long live-edge wooden table at bar height on an oak barrel, with white metal stools, set right behind the sectional and facing a television on the wall, with a small neon controller sign beside it.
The long table, right behind the couch
06

The long table

A long table at bar height, with stools down one side. It sits right behind the sectional, so the people at the table see over the couch to the screen.

This is the place for board games, or playoff games.

The booth's red seat and dark wood table at the left, beside a counter with four mini arcade cabinets and two white stools, under shelves of boxed games, mounted vintage consoles and framed posters on the white wall.
The booth in back
07

Other arcades are standing room only. This one has a booth.

In back there is a booth with a Nintendo Entertainment System built in. A group can slide in together, play Super Mario Bros. and experience gaming the way it originated.

The end of the grey sectional and the stone-topped coffee table with a checkers board set out, facing the large television on the wall.
The sectional, with checkers on the coffee table
08

The sectional

A big sectional faces the 75-inch television, with room for the whole team on game night. The Xbox Series S has four controllers, so the whole family can play together: Jeopardy, Monopoly and arcade classics, four at a time.

Look closer

Part arcade, part museum.

Boxed games sit on display shelves. Vintage posters cover the walls. Original consoles hang on the walls like art.

The children find something new every time they walk in. So do the grown-ups who remember playing them.

An illustration of the display wall: boxed games on two shelves, a vintage poster, an original console mounted on the wall, and a case of arcade tokens. VINTAGE POSTERS BOXED TOKENS
Illustrated. The real wall has more on it.

It runs all day for the children and stays open all evening for everyone else.

  1. AfternoonThe machines, air hockey and foosball, all going at once.
  2. EveningThe long table, the booth and the big screen.

The name

Named for the course on the property.

Boulder Oak is the three-hole disc golf course at Mountain Retreat: par 9, with fairways that wind between the granite and the oaks. The arcade shares its name.

Play a round in the afternoon, and settle the score at air hockey after dinner.

See the course
A Boulder Oak disc golf basket on the lawn at dusk, under strings of lights between the pines, with a picnic table and turquoise chairs at the edge of the grass.
Boulder Oak after dark, under the string lights

Good to know

Stay

The arcade comes with Mountain Retreat.

Four bedrooms on eight acres at the base of Iron Mountain, with a hot tub under a star-filled sky, a fire pit, private hiking trails and Boulder Oak disc golf. It sleeps fourteen, and the arcade is part of the stay.

  • 14sleeps
  • 4bedrooms
  • 8acres
  • 1arcade
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