 Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the armchair walk of the Palace Hotel. My name is Rob Spore. I'm one of the volunteer guides with San Francisco City Guides and a longtime guide at the Palace Hotel. If you'd like more information and you haven't already grabbed one of our brochures or other materials from the stage here, please help yourself after the presentation. All right, now let's talk about the Palace Hotel. What is the big deal about the Palace? Why is it so important and why does it have such a huge position in San Francisco history? Well, that's why you're here. It goes back primarily to its founders, a very colorful couple of men. First, William Ralston. William Ralston was an immigrant to San Francisco, originally born in the Midwest, came to San Francisco by way of Mexico, where he had been involved in the shipping and treating business, and eventually settled in San Francisco. He was very typical in most ways. When being compared to the other gilded age entrepreneurs, only Ralston was a little bit different in that he was nice. He was a really nice guy. He was helpful. He was enthusiastic. He was personable. He was friendly. And he was not opposed to helping people without having to have a percentage. He liked to see people grow. He liked to see businesses grow. And most important of all, he wanted to see San Francisco grow. He had grand illusions about what San Francisco could become, and he made it his business to put that into effect. And one of the ways he would do that would be the Palace Hotel. His primary source of income was the Bank of California. Ralston organized the bank, and it was the first interstate banking empire ever in American history. They had branches in California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. Most important, though, was the branch in Nevada, because it was dealing primarily with the Comstock Load, the big silver bonanza that followed the Gold Rush. So the bank was established there, or the branch was established there, and combined with the bank in San Francisco, that comprised the greatest portion of Ralston's wealth. That was the source of the money that funded all sorts of ventures that he was involved in. He partnered with his best friend, whose name was William Sharon, and in 1875, as the final touches were being applied to the hotel, Ralston became involved in a scheme related to water. Basically, he was out to build a monopoly of either water itself or watershed land and water companies. And he did that by buying up water companies and watershed land all over the Bay Area. Unfortunately, it was taking a tremendous toll on his fortune, and he began to do some kind of shady maneuvers at the Bank of California, specifically moving gold and silver between his various accounts to cover checks that he was writing to cover the cost of his water scheme. He was also using dummy stock certificates and a couple of other methods to disguise the drain on his resources, because the hotel was quite expensive, and it was turning out to be more expensive than originally planned. Tragically, Ralston was caught when the silver markets collapsed, possibly as a result of manipulations in the stock market by Ralston's friend, William Sharon. William Sharon was trying to get himself appointed as the U.S. senator from Nevada, and that was back before it was an elected office. You actually had to be appointed by state legislatures in order to become a U.S. senator. Sharon was intent on becoming a senator for a number of reasons, and he didn't like competition, so he set out to ruin anybody that was running against him, and the best way, the most effective way to do that was through the Comstock load, because most of his competitors had interest in the mines or mining operations. So he would create these roller coaster effects regarding stock prices, and in August of 1875 the market had been straining all summer and the bottom just dropped out. There was a run on the Bank of California. The board of directors came down and shooed everybody away and closed the doors, saying, just calm down, take a chill pill, relax, don't call us, we'll call you, and they instigated an audit to make sure the bank was still solvent and told the depositors that they could come in and get their money after the audit was finished. Well, the audit indicated substantial overdrafts virtually all attributed to Ralston's accounts. So the board of directors went to William Ralston and said, what were you thinking? And he said, I know, I know, I'm so sorry, of course I will submit a letter of resignation. And they said, well, you better submit about four and a half million dollars along with your letter of resignation. We have to make up the shortage at the bank. So Ralston and Sharon partnered once again to engineer the raising of capital to cover the shortage of the bank. Basically, Sharon bought all of Ralston's properties for pennies on the dollar. Real estate, businesses, even insurance policies were traded. The thought being that Sharon would shepherd the stuff until it could bounce back along with Ralston and then Ralston would be able to buy it back and he would emerge triumphant in just a few years. And anybody who knew Ralston absolutely believed that to be true because every indication up to that point was that he would be able to pull it off. Unfortunately, it wasn't to happen. In August 1875, after the mess at the bank had been settled, he went up to North Beach to take his customary daily swim in the Bay. And according to the official story, people on shore noticed that he appeared to be in trouble as soon as he hit the water. And they sent out a rowboat to rescue him, but they were too late. He had already drowned, presumably the shock of the cold water and the strain of his business empire collapse, along with it being a very hot day in August, conspired to kill him. Now, I use air quotes to describe that as the official story because the real story that you can read about in journals and things like that was that he committed suicide. Why isn't that the official story? Because all Mrs. Ralston had, all she could salvage from her life with William Ralston was an insurance policy. And if it was concluded or proven that Ralston committed suicide, the insurance policy would be null and void. Mrs. Ralston would have nothing, absolutely nothing. So Ralston's friends banded together, twisted some arms, and got the official report to say something like apoplexy, which is the name of an attack that they didn't really know the cause of back then. So that's why it's the official with air quotes report of his death. Even more tragic because this all happened in August. It was in October that the hotel was slated to open. So Ralston missed the opening of his beloved palace by just a matter of months. So ownership stayed in the hands of William Sharon. Now, this team, this combination Ralston and Sharon was rather bizarre because you could not find two men more opposite. Where Ralston was outgoing and personable and friendly and helpful. Sharon was mean, miserably miserable, a sour puss, greedy, avaricious, nasty. You get the picture. All I can say regarding their friendship is that opposites attract. That's the only explanation I can come up with. But the palace transferred to Sharon as part of the deal. And it actually stayed in the Sharon family for many, many years. We'll talk more about that in just a moment. And here is a picture of the first palace hotel from about the 1880s. It was spectacular. It was huge, 800 rooms, seven stories high. And it was massive, especially for its time and place. Notice or compare, I should say, the mass of the hotel here in the corner with the rest of the downtown area around 1870. This is the perfect example. This is the perfect way to indicate Ralston's plans. They were enormous. And indeed, probably a little too big for the San Francisco of that particular time. But that didn't stop him. At the time the palace was being completed, it looked as if his money was unlimited. So he wanted to make sure it was the most luxurious, the most comfortable hotel in the world. He wanted it filled with only the best, so the finest furniture, the finest china and silverware, linens and towels and wash clothes. Everything had to be the finest. And it was coming from all over the world because only the best would do for the palace hotel. Here's a hand tinted postcard that I've included because this includes the bridge that you can just make out here. Yeah, on this corner, just outside the frame of the postcard, was the Grand Hotel, one of Ralston's earliest efforts in the hotel business. And when the palace was built, the Grand Hotel lingered on. And what happened was some of the most wealthy and powerful men in San Francisco would live in the palace hotel during the week and go home to their families on the weekends. And they would install their mistresses in the Grand Hotel over here. So the hotel built what became known as the Bridge of Size, S-I-G-H-S. And that allowed the men and their mistresses to mingle without being in direct public view all of the time. Every aspect of the hotel was amazing, not only the best, but the latest technology too. So notice, five elevators. And then over here is the top of the central atrium, a glass-enclosed seven-story atrium and protection for the guests. The architects of the hotel were very aware of two things, a big earthquake that had occurred in 1868 and damaged severely brick buildings. So they knew brick buildings were susceptible. The other thing they were very aware of was fire. In the early days of San Francisco, fires broke out almost constantly. And during the early days of the gold rush, the entire city would be destroyed several times within just a two-year period. So they tried to include a lot of safety features in the hotel and you see them listed here. Access to a lot of water up on the roof and in the sub-basement and artesian well just outside one corner of the hotel. Fire detection devices in each room, fire detectors in 1875, it's true. Electric call buttons and actual fire alarms that could be activated by staff or guests alike. In terms of seismic safety, notice the foundation was 12 feet deep and it was made of brick, which sounds potentially dangerous, but it had reinforced mortar. They put extra cement in the mortar and they made it extra big, extra deep. And that was the foundation for the hotel. The brick walls normally would be susceptible to damage during earthquakes, but they were bolted through the brickwork and they had rods and bolts that were secured on the inside and the outside to help reinforce the walls, which were also made with extra cement in the mortar. Oh, and not the least of which the walls were two feet thick. There's a picture of the central atrium. The main entrance of the hotel is right there, that's New Montgomery Street. Through those huge doors would ride the carriages that brought passengers into the center of the hotel. The office was just off the circle here. So this is how you arrived. You came in the doors through New Montgomery Street and you would then go to the office, the restaurants or whatever. This did prove to be somewhat problematic though, especially with the advent of the horseless carriage and the wide turning radius that was too big for those cars in this tiny little space. Not to mention the pollution coming out of the back end of both the horses and the cars. People started to complain more and more, so ultimately by the turn of the 20th century, the hotel had banished all the vehicles to the outdoors and the inner atrium was turned into a court or a lounge area. Disaster. Now you may be thinking, oh this is going to be a quick part of the presentation because we already know the hotel was safeguarded in many ways against earthquakes and fire. So what could possibly happen on April 18th 1906 when the city was rocked by a violent earthquake and fires broke out all over, merged together into monstrous firestorms and started chewing their way through two-thirds of the city. Would the palace make it or not? Here's some information about the earthquake. The first shock alone lasted for almost a minute, so if you can imagine some incredibly violent shaking going on for a full, well 45 seconds to a minute, understand the magnitude of the 1906 disaster. And then as I said, fires broke out all over the city, little fires that merged together because the water pipes had been broken by the earthquake. The firefighters had no water to really fight the fires. Here's the view on Market Street. You can see the front of the palace hotel here and just down the street what was called the Call Building is burning furiously. Now that's pretty remarkable because when that building opened, it was billed as a fireproof tower. But guess what? If you surround your fireproof building with enough other buildings that do catch fire, your fireproof tower will catch on fire, and that's exactly what happened here. So the fire is working its way down Market Street. It's also working its way up from the south of Market Neighborhood and eventually the palace would be surrounded, but they held off for hours. They actually had staff people with wet towels, wet blankets, and wet sheets going from room to room wherever the fire had made its way through the windows. They were beating out the flames as well as using the water from the sprinklers which helped keep the fire under control and getting more water from that well in the basement or sub-basement. But then the fire company came on the scene and said, we're going to take over the artesian well at the corner of your building. At that point, hotel management saw the writing on the wall, ordered everybody out of the building, and just a few hours later the hotel succumbed and within a few more hours after that, that's all that was left completely gutted. Here's a view looking from the front. There's the original main entrance where the horses and carriages went. You can see all the way to the back wall, the inside completely consumed in the flames. However, like the rest of the city, the palace hotel bounced back. Within three years a brand new structure was built and opened to the public in plenty of time for the Panama Pacific International Exposition in 1915. But here's some information about the new hotel. It was a little bit smaller, only 550 rooms instead of 800. But notice it still sits on the 1875 foundation, so the original foundation is still there, but everything above has been replaced. Here's a beautiful piece of porcelain that was made to commemorate the opening of the hotel. I should point out that the cost had doubled in the meantime. The original hotel was $5 million, the 1909 replacement, $10 million. And here's a great photo. The hotel today looks pretty much as it did back then. The big exception would be all these balconies and the big one running along the top and these as well. The seismic awareness, even back in the 1950s when those were torn down, people were aware enough of the potential danger of those balconies that it was decided to get rid of them. What is now the Garden Court became, at least temporarily, another lounge type area called the Palm Court. And as I said, it opened in plenty of time for the 1915 Exposition. And here's a rate card showing you various categories of rooms and the price they would charge for those rooms. I think there's a lesson in economics or inflation in here, isn't there? In 1989, the hotel closed for two years for a major renovation. Structural upgrades, restoration to its original appearance, infrastructure upgrades, heating, cooling, air conditioning, plumbing, electrical systems, all of that. So pretty much a top to bottom renovation. And it reopened in 1991, which is the time that city guides began offering tours of the building. The hotel was besieged by people dying to find out the results of the renovation. So the hotel, of course, just didn't have the staff necessary to escort hundreds or thousands of people through the hotel every week or every month. So one of my colleagues happened to work at the hotel at the time and said, oh, I just happened to belong to this organization that gives historical walking tours. So that's how our relationship with the hotel was born. So that renovation put everything back to its 1909 appearance. There had been some changes made over the years. Even though the hotel had only three owners, one of them was the Sheraton Corporation. And it wanted to kind of like change the hotel to match its other properties to create a Sheraton image, a Sheraton style. And a lot of those were incompatible with historic preservation guidelines. But the 1989 renovation reversed all of them. Beautiful view of the lobby. Highlights over the years, one of the other reasons the hotel is so famous is not only its role in the city as a teacher of sorts. It was a teacher of the good life, good food and good wine and appropriate manners. The hotel was in the role to teach people. And because of its luxury, it attracted a lot of well-healed customers including the Emperor of Brazil. And if you read the quote here, nothing makes me so ashamed of Brazil as the Palace Hotel. Which could have had something to do with his downfall. Just a few years after this, he was deposed in a coup. And it's hard to imagine his opponents did not jump on that quote to use it against him. General Ulysses Grant in 1879. Oscar Wilde, 1882. King David Kalakaua of Hawaii, 1891. Unfortunately, the King checked into the hotel but did not check out. He passed away during his visit. 1906, Enrico Caruso. Famous story regarding the great tenor and the possible effects of the earthquake on his larynx or his vocal cords. He was terrified. He had been bounced around his room in the Palace Hotel during the earthquake. And if you've read stories about it, you know he wasn't kidding. He was jumping and sliding. He was afraid all of the jerky movement could have ruined his throat. So after the first shocks had died away and his manager came in to make sure he was okay, Enrico Caruso was just sort of blubbering, crying that his vocal cords were ruined and he would never sing again. So the manager opened up the window and said, sing, sing out the window. Test them. Let's see how they are. And he belted out a few bars of an aria over the ruins of Market Street proving that his voice was okay. Once he made his way back to New York, some newspaper reporters said, well, what did you think of the experience? It's like, how did the earthquake affect you? They just said, give me the Suvio, which happened to be erupting right at that time. But Caruso was saying, yeah, I'll take a volcano over an earthquake any time. Who else passed through the walls? Well, we had President Woodrow Wilson in 1919 promoting the League of Nations. We have President Warren Harding in 1923 like King David Calacaua checked in, did not check out, passed away during his stay at the hotel. And here is the funeral cortege carrying the unfortunate president to the train station for the trek back to Washington. Hollywood stars show up in 1932. Unfortunately, the pictures of such a scale, you can't really make out most of them. But I have highlighted this one right here. I'm sure everybody recognizes him, even though it's been many years since he's been in a picture. But yes, that's Boris Karloff, Nikita Khrushchev, 1959. And notice where he's looking? He's admiring that beautiful colored glass ceiling in the garden court. First lady at the time, Hillary Clinton, followed by Bill Gates. And as of this time, as of the earlier middle 2000s, the hotel stopped keeping track of its famous guests for safety and security or privacy purposes, presumably. But it gives you the idea that the hotel continues to attract the 1%. All right, now if you were to actually take the walking tour, what are some of the things you would expect to see as you walk through the hotel? Well, first is the Pied Piper painting, probably one of the most famous Maxfield Parish paintings in the world. And those of you who are local, no doubt remember the big brew haha a couple of years ago, when the hotel announced plans to clean and sell the painting. But the painting, like the hotel, is such an integral part of San Francisco's image and history that people all the way up to Mayor Lee called the owners of the hotel and said, you can't part with this painting. You can't sell it. It belongs to the people. It belongs to the city as much as it belongs to you and your corporate owners. So the hotel rescinded that plan, went ahead with the restoration of it though, and it came back in August of that year and re-assumed its place behind the bar where it's always meant to be. 2013, the year that it almost left the city. I should back up one slide just to point out the value of the painting. The owners of the hotel paid $6,000 in 1909. In 1989, when the hotel underwent the big renovation and closed for two years, the painting was sent to the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park for appraisal, and this is what the art expert said. Yep, $1.5 to $2.5 million. A few years after that, the hotel was offered $7 million for the painting. So you can imagine by 2013, you can just guess how much the painting might have fetched at auction. Presumably tens of millions of dollars, maybe even $100 million. Who knows. Fortunately, it never came to pass. The painting, as I said, went right back to its place of honor behind the bar and is still there today, as you see. Behind the bar is the famous Pied Piper Grill. Beautiful setting with that beautiful paneling on the wall, incredible marble mosaic tile floor. And two very noteworthy works of art on the front wall here. These are done by an artist named Antonio Sotomayor. Now, he was a guy from Bolivia, emigrated to the United States in the 1920s, and his first job, or one of his first jobs, was at the Palace Hotel, washing dishes. He became very popular amongst his coworkers because he would make doodles or sketches or caricatures of people that came to the hotel. So famous local people, famous visitors. Antonio Sotomayor would capture them on paper. And he came to the attention of the then owner of the hotel, Mrs. Janet Johnston, who recognized his artistic capability and set him to work creating works of art in the hotel. Now, in this picture you see Sotomayor with his doodles, and that's exactly what got him so popular, what made him so popular with his coworkers. He had a very whimsical, apparently, and humorous approach to art. Of all the artworks supposedly created for the hotel during the 1920s, 1930s, all that we have left are those two panels I pointed out in the previous slide. We have no idea what happened to anything else he may have done for the hotel. There's no record of it being sold, no reports of it being stolen. We just don't know. Presumably back then no one really thought too much of it. It wasn't such a big deal and may have been covered over or even thrown away at some point. In those two panels you'll see some colorful characters from San Francisco history. Certainly most of you recognize the central figure in this slide, or let's see, how many of you do not know who that is? Okay, that is Norton I. Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Now, you probably didn't know that the United States was ruled by an emperor for about 20 years in the mid-1800s, but it's true. They may not teach it in history textbooks, but here's proof. It was delivered to us by virtue of Sotomayor anyway. But yeah, basically he was a guy that went nuts. He was a very successful businessman. He undertook a project that wound up losing him all of his money, and as the money dribbled away so did his sanity. Disappeared briefly, then reappeared, dressed in this type of outfit with the plumed hat and the epaulets and the military style uniform, declared himself Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, and lived in San Francisco. And when he wasn't making proclamations on hot news and political topics of the day, he was busy printing these little pieces of paper. You see fluttering to the ground. Money. He made his own money. Now, you may laugh, but he's a sovereign ruler. He can't use somebody else's money. He can't borrow, you know, Queen Victoria's money. He can't borrow Uncle Sam's money. He has to make his own money, right? That's how it works. So that's exactly what he did. And he not only used that money to pay for his meals and lodging and whatever else he needed, but he also made money by selling those to tourists. This guy was so famous, people would come to San Francisco and seek him out, and they would give usually a nickel for one of his pieces of money. So that's how he made money. In the other panel, another colorful character. Looks like Ben Franklin to most people, but it's actually supposed to be George Washington. And the man himself was named George Washington Coombs. And he traded on his resemblance to the first president to walk around town in that colonial outfit to advertise his business. You'll never guess what the business was. In fact, even if I tell you the business, you won't know what it is. How many of you know phrenology? Ah, okay. You are students of history, I see. Phrenology is a study of the bumps in the skull. And its practitioners claim to be able to predict your fortune, your health, your mental capabilities based on the bumps in your skull. Became discredited fairly quickly. And when that happened here in San Francisco, George Washington Coombs disappeared, but was reported to have reappeared in New York a couple of years later. He had to get out of town. As we continue our imaginary walking tour or armchair walk of the hotel, we would come to the Ralston Room, distinctive for the vaulted ceiling, and the Garden Court. This is a new picture of the Garden Court showing the effects of the renovation. What you have here in the foreground is the restaurant. The front half of the Garden Court is now a lounge, which makes sense because the Pied Piper Bar had always been amazingly popular, incredibly, unbelievably popular. And there was just not enough room for all the people who wanted to hang out at the Palace Hotel. So apparently that motivated this change. So everything in front of the screen is more of a lounge type setup. There we go. Here's a picture from the other side of the screen. So now you have lots more space to hang out at the Palace Hotel with your buddies. Given the number of companies in the downtown area, especially smaller tech firms, well, of course, the larger ones too, competition for those seats is really fierce. Continuing along to the Grand Ballroom, grand in every sense of the word. And if you walk out the backside of the Grand Ballroom, you come to what's called the Regency Foyer, which is also a walkway, a hallway, to the Gold Ballroom. This is distinctive not only for the gold decor, but also the fireplace in the back wall there. And also, look at this, windows, daylight, a meeting room that actually has real daylight. You don't see that in a lot of modern hotels anymore. The convention facilities are either buried underground or put inside huge boxes with a walkway or corridor around the outside and no light inside. One of the more beloved rooms in the hotel is the French Parlor. Two levels. These are steps going down to the lower level. And then notice these windows. They look out over the Garden Court. Spectacular view. So if you're looking for a great place for a little wedding or a little party or a little corporate get-together, French Parlor would be ideal. The renovation from 1989 to 1991 also included the addition of a new section to the hotel. This is one part of it called the Sunset Court, and these are meeting rooms along the sides and the back. So this is basically like a courtyard to greatly expanded convention and meeting facilities. And the addition also included a pool and fitness center up on the fourth floor. Typical rooms that you might find. And I've included before and after pictures here to give you an idea of the extent of the renovation. You can see that we've given way from a more opulent or perhaps European style of decor to something a bit more minimal, a bit more gray, definitely more contemporary. So the hotel is trying very hard to keep up to date while still offering the ultimate in accommodations. And I think you'll see by these photos they have succeeded. And there's the palace as we know it today and at night time. And that's the end of our slideshow. We are a program of the San Francisco Public Library. We're very excited to have been affiliated with the library since our founding in 1978. We're also a partner of the San Francisco Parks Alliance. Now that's kind of an unusual combination, but it is because neither organization actually funds city guides. We're not part of the library's budget and we don't get any money from the Parks Alliance. The Parks Alliance though manages our money for us and provides our nonprofit status. Now of course even with a group of about 300 volunteer guides, we do have a couple of people on staff and we like to pay them. So I wanted to give a shout out to our sponsors which include the Omni Hotel, the Equity Office people who manage the ferry building, among other commercial properties, and we of course have a tour of the ferry building. And last but hardly least the JEC Foundation, currently based in LA and a supporter of educational and cultural endeavors. Last but hardly least, Grants for the Arts funded by the Hotel Tax Fund, a big shout out to them. Now those of you who are veteran tour takers know all about the yellow envelope. We collect donations as part of our tour. The tours are free but donations are welcome. We collect them in a yellow envelope but in keeping with long-standing library policy or an agreement we have with the library, we do not circulate the yellow envelope at any library-based event. So no yellow envelope today, you're off the hook. If you feel really strongly about making a donation though, I just happen to have some of our sponsor envelopes right here. You're welcome to take one of them home with you and mail it back or just wait until your next city guide tour and give a couple of dollars extra at the end.