Hotel del Coronado

When Elisha Babcock Jr. and Hampton L. Story purchased land in 1886 on a peninsula just south of San Diego, they were envisioning a destination resort in a place that most people considered remote and undeveloped. The peninsula, called Coronado, had no significant town, no rail connection, and no natural advantages other than its geography. What the developers saw was potential: a crescent of beach, a mild climate, and the possibility of building something grand enough to draw wealthy travellers from across America. They hired architect James Reid, a Canadian-born designer then in his early thirties who had trained in Indiana and was eager to make a name for himself. Reid had never built a hotel of this scale or ambition, but he possessed a clear vision and the skill to execute it. When Hotel del Coronado opened in 1888, it announced the arrival of American resort architecture at its most ambitious.

The building Reid designed was constructed almost entirely of wood. This choice, which would be almost inconceivable in a major construction today, was both practical and audacious in the 1880s. Wood was relatively abundant in California and could be worked quickly. The site had no major rail connection for freight, making steel and stone challenging to transport. But the choice also reflected a particular aesthetic vision: Reid drew on the Queen Anne style, a romantic and somewhat theatrical architectural mode that had emerged in Britain in the 1880s and was gaining traction in America. Queen Anne aesthetics emphasised irregular massing, decorative detailing, varied rooflines, and ornamental detail rather than severity. Reid's interpretation, applied to a large seaside resort in California, created something both fantastical and somehow deeply American: a sprawling, asymmetrical structure of pale wood with turrets, towers, and architectural flourishes that caught the eye without feeling excessive.

The scale was immense. The main building rose five stories, covering ground space equivalent to 16 acres when including all wings and annexes. An enormous courtyard at the heart of the building created an outdoor ceremonial space and allowed light to penetrate deep into the structure. The architectural details throughout were meticulous: the exterior featured engaged columns, ornamental shingles, varied window treatments, and decorative woodwork that required artisanal craftsmanship. The interior spaces were conceived at a scale befitting a destination resort: grand public rooms, elaborate dining halls, parlours for socialising, billiard rooms, reading rooms, and corridors that seemed almost processional in their length and decoration. Reid had created a wooden palace, something that should have been impermanent but through careful construction and maintenance has endured for more than a century and a half.

The hotel's opening coincided with a pivotal moment in American technological history. In 1904, Hotel del Coronado installed what was claimed to be the world's first electrically lit outdoor Christmas tree. The claim was probably true or close to it. Electric lighting was still relatively new, still something that impressed and astonished. The hotel embraced new technologies: electric lighting throughout the public spaces, modern plumbing, kitchen equipment at the forefront of the era. These amenities, combined with the architectural grandeur and beachfront location, established the Del as a destination resort that could compete with the finest properties anywhere in America. It was a place where someone from the East Coast could arrive by train and find themselves in a completely modern facility set against a romantic, somewhat exotic California coastline.

The hotel attracted the notable figures of the Gilded Age and beyond. President William Taft visited in 1915, partaking in the elaborate hospitality the Del provided for visiting dignitaries. Charles Lindbergh, the aviator who had become a global hero, was honoured at a dinner in the Crown Room in 1927, seated in a vast space that could accommodate hundreds for formal events. The building became a location for Hollywood films, its distinctive architecture and beach setting making it a natural choice for moviemakers. The 1958 film "Some Like It Hot," one of cinema's greatest comedies, was filmed partly at the property, bringing further renown. The stained glass windows, the wooden banisters, the proportions of the public rooms all appeared on screen, lending the hotel a cinematic quality that reinforced its status as more than a place to sleep: it was a destination where history happened, where important people gathered, where a night could become a memory.

The wooden construction that gave the hotel much of its charm required constant vigilance. Paint had to be maintained, wooden details had to be protected from decay and termite damage, and the integrity of the wood-frame structure had to be preserved against decades of exposure to salt air and California weather. For much of its history, the hotel remained in private or family hands, with owners who had the resources and inclination to maintain the structure carefully. When the hotel eventually entered the modern hotel chain system, one of the key concerns became the upkeep of the building itself. A wooden resort hotel is fundamentally different from a concrete or steel structure: it ages visibly, requires constant attention, and cannot be modernised without careful consideration of what would be lost.

Between 2015 and 2021, the hotel underwent a comprehensive restoration that cost tens of millions of dollars. The project was conceived not as a gut renovation but as a careful rehabilitation. The exterior was repainted and deteriorated wooden details were replaced. The interior received modern mechanical systems invisibly installed within the old wooden structure. Modern bathroom and plumbing fixtures updated the suites while the public spaces retained their Queen Anne decoration and proportions. The restoration attempted something difficult: to preserve the essential character and materiality of an 1888 wooden building while providing the invisible infrastructure that contemporary guests expect. The restoration was completed in 2021, positioning the hotel for another chapter of its history.

Today the Hotel del Coronado represents an unusual survival: a wooden resort hotel from the 1880s that remains in active use, that has hosted presidents and celebrities, that appeared in Hollywood films, and that through care and investment has been maintained as a functioning luxury property. The beachfront location, once remote, is now within a developed region of Southern California. The building itself remains the dominant visual feature of Coronado, its pale wood and distinctive roofline visible from the beach and from the surrounding streets. The Victorian architecture, which has moved in and out of fashion numerous times since 1888, now reads as authentically historical, a beautiful example of the optimism and ambition that characterised the American leisure resorts of the late 19th century.