Drug rehab centre next door to Camp David in jeopardy over owners' links to Scientology

Trout Run stood in for the real presidential retreat in 'The West Wing'

Narconon's rehab program involves listening to the teachings of the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard (Getty Images)

A 40-acre retreat in rural Maryland with scattered stone cottages and a burbling stream that stood in for Camp David in The West Wing TV series – the real Camp David is next door – is at the centre of a furious wrangle triggered by new owners who want to turn it into a residential drug rehabilitation facility.

It is a plan that might normally win easy support from the local Fredericksburg County Council – the area has seen a surge of heroin addiction and could use another treatment option – but for the fact that those owners are connected to the Church of Scientology and their rehab techniques are not always admired.

Deep in the pines of the Catoctin Mountains northwest of Washington DC, Trout Run was originally developed as a fishing camp and possible retirement haven for President Herbert Hoover. Mr Hoover, as it happens, chose New York City for his twilight years. He fished at Trout Run only a few times.

This presents a problem for Narconon, the outfit that wants to use Trout Run for its rehab programme that involves a nutritional regime combined with long stretches sweating in saunas – all the better for extracting toxins – and listening to the teachings of the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard. Planning permission is contingent on persuading county officials to designate Trout Run a historic site.

That it was paid regular visits by a fictional President Jed Bartlet, played by Martin Sheen in ‘The West Wing’, clearly won’t do. Nor, surely, is its proximity to the real Camp David especially compelling. But opposition to granting the historic designation to Trout Run may have less to do with whether or not it actually qualifies and much more to do with local distaste for all things Scientology.

“No treaties were signed there,” Kristin Milne-Glasser, a local drug counselor, told council members in a letter acquired by the Washington Post. “No President was born or died there. No epic battles were won or lost, no proclamations penned, no foreign dignitaries lodged and feted.” She snipped: “At best, Trout Run merits a roadside plaque, inscribed ‘On this site in 1930, Herbert Hoover bagged a big one.’ ”

“What’s so historic about a place where a guy fishes?” Jerry Donald, a member of the County Council asked bluntly at a recent hearing. A vote was delayed until its next meeting leaving the folks at Narconon the chance to keep lobbying. “We’re definitely going to have to get some true information out in terms of the questions that were raised,” an official with the group, Yvonne Rodgers, conceded.