Fairmont Hotel - Rebuilt by Julia Morgan
Photo: Supercarwaar, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
A stop on San Francisco, District by District, a free self-guided tour.
The Fairmont was nearly finished when the 1906 earthquake hit. Its frame and stone walls stood up to the shaking, but fire roared through the empty interior. The owners hired Julia Morgan, the first woman licensed as an architect in California, to rebuild it, and the hotel opened on April 18, 1907, exactly one year after the disaster.
It became Nob Hill's grand social stage. In 1945 delegates from around the world came to San Francisco for the conference that founded the United Nations, and the hotel hosted statesmen and meetings that helped shape the charter; a plaque inside marks that history.
Step into the lobby, a public space, and look up at the gilded columns and ceiling, rebuilt after the fire. Then cross Mason Street to the brownstone on the corner.
More on Wikipedia: Fairmont San Francisco · Julia Morgan
Stops on this tour
- Ferry Building and the Embarcadero - Where the City Met the World
- Financial District and Jackson Square - Gold Rush on the Old Shoreline
- Chinatown - The Neighborhood That Refused to Move
- North Beach and Telegraph Hill - Little Italy and the Beats
- Fisherman's Wharf - Italian Boats and Old Ships
- Nob Hill and Russian Hill - Cable Cars, Mansions and the Great Fire
- The Presidio - Two Centuries Guarding the Golden Gate
- Japantown and the Fillmore - Two Communities, One Neighborhood
- Haight-Ashbury - From Victorian Suburb to Summer of Love
- Golden Gate Park - Sand Dunes Turned Into a Park
- The Castro - A Neighborhood That Became a Movement
- The Mission - Where San Francisco Began
- Civic Center - Domes, Charters and Protest
- South of Market - From Rincon Hill to the Tech Boom