Hotel del Coronado (also known as The Del) is a beachfront luxury hotel in the city of Coronado, just across the San Diego Bay from San Diego, California. It is one of the few surviving examples of an American architectural genre: the wooden Victorian beach resort. It is one of the oldest and largest all-wooden buildings in California and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977,[3][5] and is a designated California Historical Landmark.[4]
When it opened in 1888, it was the largest resort hotel in the world and the first to use electrical lighting. It has hosted presidents, royalty, and celebrities throughout the years.[6] The hotel has been featured in numerous movies and books.
The hotel received the Four Diamond rating from the American Automobile Association,[7] and was listed by USA Today as one of the "Top 10 Resorts In The World".[8
Main building of the Hotel del CoronadoOn December 19, 1885, Elisha S. Babcock, retired railroad executive from Evansville, Indiana; Hampton L. Story, of the Story and Clark Piano Company of Chicago; and Jacob Gruendike, president of the First National Bank of San Diego, bought all of Coronado and North Island for $110,000.
24-page prospectus with the title Coronado Beach. San Diego, California, asserted that "The Coronado Beach Company has been organized with a capital of One Million Dollars …." The officers were Babcock, Story, and Gruendike. Also involved with the company at this early stage were three men from Indiana: railroad baron Josephus Collett of Terre Haute, lumber merchant Heber Ingle of Patoka, and John Inglehart, a miller, who later became famous through the development of Swansdown flour.
The men hired architect James W. Reid, a native of New Brunswick, Canada, who first practiced in Evansville and Terre Haute. His younger brother Merritt Reid, a partner in Reid Brothers, the Evansville firm, stayed in Indiana, but brother Watson Reid helped supervise the 2,000 laborers.[9]
Babcock's visions for the hotel were grand:
San Diego land boom
In the mid-1880s, the San Diego region was in the midst of one of its first real estate booms. At that time, it was common for a developer to build a grand hotel as a draw for what would otherwise be a barren landscape. The Hollywood Hotel in Hollywood, California, the Raymond Hotel in Pasadena, the Del Monte in Monterey, and the Hotel Redondo in Redondo Beach California were similar grand hotels built as development enticements during this era.[9][edit] Coronado Beach Company
24-page prospectus with the title Coronado Beach. San Diego, California, asserted that "The Coronado Beach Company has been organized with a capital of One Million Dollars …." The officers were Babcock, Story, and Gruendike. Also involved with the company at this early stage were three men from Indiana: railroad baron Josephus Collett of Terre Haute, lumber merchant Heber Ingle of Patoka, and John Inglehart, a miller, who later became famous through the development of Swansdown flour.
The men hired architect James W. Reid, a native of New Brunswick, Canada, who first practiced in Evansville and Terre Haute. His younger brother Merritt Reid, a partner in Reid Brothers, the Evansville firm, stayed in Indiana, but brother Watson Reid helped supervise the 2,000 laborers.[9]
Babcock's visions for the hotel were grand:
"It would be built around a court…a garden of tropical trees, shrubs and flowers,…. From the south end, the foyer should open to Glorietta Bay with verandas for rest and promenade. On the ocean corner, there should be a pavilion tower, and northward along the ocean, a colonnade, terraced in grass to the beach. The dining wing should project at an angle from the southeast corner of the court and be almost detached, to give full value to the view of the ocean, bay and city."[10]
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