Samantha Swindler reports in The Oregonian/OregonLive on September 5, 2025
Antelope, Oregon, had its moment of fame in the 1980s, when followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh swept in, registered to vote and effectively took over the tiny incorporated city. For about two years, they even renamed it “Rajneesh.”
These days, the central Oregon town — home to just 37 residents as of the 2020 census — is a much quieter place. So quiet, in fact, that its clear night skies and lack of light pollution recently earned it the distinction of being Oregon’s first Dark Sky-certified city.
Now, a new campground offers visitors a chance to spend the night and experience the beauty of those stars themselves. The Antelope Basecamp includes 10 A-frame cabins that were originally used in the Rajneeshpuram commune and have been repurposed as overnight rentals.
Brandie McNamee opened the site in January 2025, transforming a long-abandoned RV park into a rustic retreat. She purchased four lots in “downtown Antelope” in February 2023 through a combined tax foreclosure sale, paying $90,000 in cash.
“We had to cash out one of our retirements to come up with enough cash because a bank wouldn’t finance it,” McNamee said. “When I say, ‘This is my retirement,’ it truly is.”
The purchase included the former Antelope Market, a café and convenience store that closed in 2017, as well as an RV park next door, overgrown with weeds and littered with trash.
McNamee, with the help of family and friends, removed four 40-yard dumpsters of debris from the RV park, mowed the grass and installed the A-frame cabins as overnight rentals.
The cabins were originally used in the 1980s as tiny homes at Rajneeshpuram, a commune built by followers of the Rajneesh movement just outside Antelope. After the commune dissolved, the property was eventually purchased by the Christian youth organization Young Life and converted into a summer camp. The cabins continued to house campers until around 2008, McNamee said.
Now, the cabins offer simple but cozy accommodations for two and can be rented without bedding (but with two waterproof mattresses) for $35 a night or furnished with bedding and a mini-fridge for $55-$60 a night. All cabins are heated.
“I want people to come and enjoy an affordable stay,” McNamee said. “Think of how much lodging accommodations cost anywhere around Bend. It’s really hard for people to say, ‘Let’s go stare at the stars for a night and just hang out.’ I want people to come out here and have a good time and not feel like it’s going to break the bank.”
Since a soft opening in January, McNamee has added new amenities at Antelope Basecamp. By June, four plumbed toilets were operational, and showers (two indoor, one outdoor) were completed later in the summer.
Just this week, concrete pathways, lined with pebbles that glow at night, were installed around the cabins and in a shared pavilion space.
The site also has an EV charging station, thanks to a resiliency grant received by Wy’East Resource Conservation and Development. Cars can use it to charge up, but if the town loses power, the station provides residents access to standard electrical outlets.
McNamee also secured a Travel Oregon grant to install a telescope resource library. By next spring, visitors should be able to borrow a telescope on site.
All exterior lighting at Antelope Basecamp is also Dark Sky compliant. On a clear night, it’s possible to see the Milky Way from the campground along Antelope’s main thoroughfare.
“Antelope has some of the darkest quality skies closest to Portland,” McNamee said. “Make that 2.5-, 3-hour drive after work on a Friday, and you’ll be able to experience it.”
A new website — antelopebasecamp.com — will launch later this fall, but for now, cabins or tent camping space can be reserved through Hipcamp, Airbnb or Vrbo.
The basecamp is just the beginning of McNamee’s plans for Antelope. Her next big project is to reopen the Antelope Market, the only store in town, which has been shuttered for eight years.
“I’ve been in the Antelope area for approximately 18 years, and I married into a fifth-generation family,” she said. “When I first met my husband, we used to come to the café whenever we were driving through. It was the hangout spot for all the old-time ranchers. They’re all bellied up to the—well, they didn’t serve alcohol—but they’re probably on their 10th cup of coffee, and they’d have their pie and ice cream. It was just this heartbeat of a gathering place.”
“We were like, okay, if we don’t buy it, who else is going to want to see it back to the way it used to be?”
McNamee received a $244,000 Oregon Main Street Revitalization Grant to renovate the building. The funds will allow her to replace the roof, plumbing and electrical systems, make the building ADA compliant, and bring the space up to code.
“I used to work in government finance for the City of Madras,” she said. “So, I knew the resources out there. If you look demographically across the state, very small rural communities have tapped into the resources that are available in Salem.”
The Antelope Market was originally built in 1959, but over the years had several additions—none of which, McNamee said, were constructed to code. One side was a café, and the other side once housed the town’s post office.
“That was actually a pretty good business model back in the day,” she said.
That changed in 1984, when the Rajneeshees bought the building and turned it into Zorba the Buddha, a vegetarian café and club. After that, many locals refused to enter the building.
“So, that’s why we ended up with the 1980s trailer for our post office—because they had to come up with a quick solution,” McNamee said.
She anticipates an 18-month construction timeline and hopes to open the market next summer. She has a long-term lease operator who will manage both the convenience store and the café, which will primarily serve pizza, baked goods, beer and coffee.
“Opening this space would bring back the heartbeat of our community,” McNamee said. “It’s a central meeting space for people to come and have a cup of coffee, but most importantly, communicate. Bringing this building back to life is, in more ways than one, going to bring life back to our little town.”
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