The Orange County Register, April 16th, 2006
Legend has it that Italian opera star Enrico Caruso rode out the 1906 earthquake in the Palace Hotel, finally running into the rubble-filled street wearing only a towel to declare, "I will never set foot in San Francisco again!''
The shaken Caruso walked up to the St. Francis the next day to have breakfast with the actor John Barrymore. The St. Francis survived the earthquake but would fall victim to the resulting fire.
The Fairmont was just about to open as the grandest hotel in the city when the earthquake hit. The building survived the shaking but was gutted when fire swept to its perch atop Nob Hill. Repaired and given a new lobby by Julia Morgan (the architect of San Simeon), it became a city icon and later the setting of the television series "Hotel.''
The three hotels not only overcame San Francisco's greatest calamity, but still reign among the upper crust of the city's hotels. All are surprisingly close together, tied by the Powell Street cable car that starts on Market Street near the Palace, passes the St. Francis on Union Square then climbs Nob Hill to clang along the backside of the Fairmont.
Sitting in squat splendor along Market Street, the Palace is one of the most wondrous re-creations of the golden age of big-city hotels to be found anywhere in the United States. A $150 million renovation in 1991 transformed the Palace into a gilded age museum with room service.
From the polished mahogany along the 340-foot main promenade to the botanical prints in the smallish green-hued guest rooms, the millions spent are on display.
The Palace's crowning centerpiece is the Garden Court, where 25,000 leaded-glass ceiling panes filter soft light into an Edwardian world of potted plants, overstuffed chairs and white-liveried waiters serving afternoon tea.
If you have a few thousand dollars to burn, you can stay in the presidential suite. Not only have chief executives slept in the suitably palatial space, one expired there. Warren G. Harding died at the hotel in 1923 while on a trip to the West. A bit less expensive experience is a drink in the dark-paneled Pied Piper Bar, named for Maxfield Parrish's painting of the famous rat- and children-trapper of Hamelin that hangs above the booze bottles.
Stroll up Geary Street or hop on the Powell Street cable car, and you quickly are at the Westin St. Francis, the gray stone eminence overlooking Union Square.
The St. Francis opened in 1904 on the site of the Calvary Presbyterian Church, which had to be demolished to make way for the hotel.
St. Francis employees still tell the joke about the Irishman on the demolition team who was asked why he was so happy at his work."I'm tearing down a Presbyterian church and getting paid for it,'' the Roman Catholic worker replied.
When it opened, the St. Francis competed with the Palace for the title of San Francisco's elite place to stay. Then came the 1906 earthquake and fire.
"At half past one in the morning, three sides of Union Square were in flames,'' Jack London wrote in Colliers magazine, describing the day after the earthquake. "The fourth side, where stood the great Hotel St. Francis, was still holding out. An hour later, ignited from top and sides, the St. Francis was flaming heavenward.''
The hotel was gutted, but the steel frame was undamaged. The smoldering hotel reopened within 40 days and was fully restored by 1907.
Unlike the Palace, the St. Francis has lost some of its historic feel over the years through "modernizing'' renovations. But locals still say, "Meet me under the clock'' - a say-no-more signal for a rendezvous at the Great Magneta Clock, a handcrafted timepiece that was brought to the hotel as part of the post-earthquake makeover in 1907.
At the crest of Nob Hill sits the Fairmont, still a favorite of San Francisco's social and political leaders.
The Fairmont was just about to open when the twin disasters of 1906 hit San Francisco. The earthquake left the hotel untouched, but fire charred the interior.
The Fairmont would reopen after an interior redesign by Julia Morgan, the architect who would become best known as the creator of Hearst Castle. Local architectural preservationists dislike the addition of an ugly tower in 1962. The wide, windowless interior hallways in the original building can seem gloomy, a good haunt for ghosts. But step into an exterior-facing room, and sunlight streams in from 5-foot-wide windows.
From its perch atop Nob Hill, the Fairmont commands views of the bay, Coit Tower and Fisherman's Wharf.
Downstairs, smartly dressed couples lounge amid the lobby, restored in 1999 to more accurately reflect the look of the hotel envisioned by Morgan. One bit of fantasy Morgan didn't create is the Tonga Room, one of the best preserved 1960s-era tiki-themed restaurants in the country.The hotel's location high above the city is its greatest strength and biggest weakness. The views are terrific, but the hike up from Union Square or North Beach can be exhausting. Best to take a cab or cable car up to Nob Hill, then walk back down.
Checklist
SHERATON PALACE HOTEL: 2 New Montgomery St., (415) 512-1111, www.sfpalace.com/. Doubles rooms start at $569.
WESTIN ST. FRANCIS HOTEL: Union Square, (415) 397-7000, www.westinstfrancis.com/. Double rooms start at $409.
FAIRMONT HOTEL: 950 Mason St., (415) 772-5000, www.fairmont.com/sanfrancisco/. Double rooms start at $229.
Tip: Lower rates, up to 40 percent off, are sometimes available at all three hotels during weekends, when business travelers on expense accounts are not in town.
Warner can be reached at (714) 796-7771 or by e-mail at gettingaway@ocregister.com
