I can’t help but think, as I sit on the wide wooden deck that overlooks this 7-mile-long California lake, that the hottest new hotel in town shouldn’t be this cheap. Hotel Marina Riviera, the design-y new darling of Big Bear Lake, certainly feels like luxury. The 42-room property has emerald tones and midcentury modern touches befitting any boutique mountainside lodge in Aspen, and has even earned early raves from Travel Leisure. Yet the cost for my midweek lakeside room, with a window looking out past the barrel sauna (how on-trend) to the towering pines of San Bernardino National Forest, is a tick under $200 per night.

Just 100 miles from the millionaires and billionaires of Los Angeles, a price like that for a place like this should set off a Caltrans traffic alert. Yet there I sit, wrapped in a pine forest and squinting from all the shimmering water; not alone, but far from the types of crowds that descend elsewhere this time of year. Sunshine is my steady companion (the more-than-mile-high town sees 300 sunny days per year), and I’m free to stare endlessly, drink in hand, at what USA Today says is America’s best lake. Somehow, the high-limit crowd hasn’t found me yet.

Of course, no one’s saying that Big Bear is some underfunded hidden paradise. It’s not hard to sniff out money in the alpine air. Whiffs of wealth emanate from docks and small peninsulas all along the lake’s 22 miles of shoreline. There are big, glassy houses that look out over the small rock islands and grassy inlets, but most of the rest of the town consists of compact cabins and aging California ranch homes. Everybody shares the same hiking trails and few public swimming areas, regardless of wallet thickness — though having a boat and a place to put it is unquestionably preferred.

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A view along the shore of Big Bear Lake, Calif. 

Teslas and curve-hugging sports cars are a common sight on California state Route 18, the mountainous ridge road into town that’s otherwise known as Rim of the World Highway. But they share the same asphalt as lifted Jeeps and sun-faded vans with their springs weighed down by cheap camping equipment and a gaggle of kids. It definitely takes some cash to afford a second home here, where median sale prices run just under $600,000, or to pick up a full-season lift ticket to one of the nearby runs.

But it’s no Lake Tahoe.

It’s no Lake Arrowhead either, Big Bear’s watery competitor just to the west — and certainly a far cry from the coastal wealth of cities like Newport Beach and Malibu. Compared with many similarly famous parts of California, Big Bear remains a capable waterside paradise, a weekend getaway that still feels financially attainable.

Pacific Crest Trail hikers earn deals in Big Bear Lake, Calif.

A barrel sauna and Big Bear Lake, Calif., beyond.

Despite being “the largest recreational body of water in Southern California” per USA Today and a year-round tourist destination, the billionaires haven’t bought up Big Bear Lake. At least not yet.

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Ironically, it was the search for abundance that brought throngs of newcomers to what is now Big Bear Lake, though most folks know it simply as Big Bear. Members of what Spanish speakers named the Serrano tribe had inhabited the long valley for thousands of years, living close to streams in small groups; Europeans and Alta California settlers started showing up about 200 years ago, walking up from the valley below to grow........

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