The Fairmont 
          San Francisco

Entrance flags flap and bellhops hop to greet the nabobs as they arrive at The Fairmont atop San Francisco’s Nob Hill. Nob is an old slang word for wealthy ‘swell’ or nabob—and some say it’s why the original Knob Hill lost its K.

In the lobby, Mazzara marble pillars rise from its marble floor. Golden cut-velvet settees, gilded brocade chairs and a super-sized lily bouquet perch on Aubusson rugs. Palm trees, growing from colbalt-and-gold-laquer Chinese fishbowls, skirt the edges.

Tony Bennett-esque music—he sang, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" first at The Fairmont—swings over from the band at the Laurel Court’s Bar. Starch-white and weighty-silver cloak the dinner tables beneath the classic domes of the Laurel Court’s Restaurant. Scenes of rural Provence (or is that Napa?) glow under gold, crystal and silk chandeliers.

To the right, behind a grand marble counter, the upbeat receptionist surprises me with an upgrade to The Venice Suite. More Paris than Venice in design, it is, nevertheless, elegant and spacious. It is comprised of an entry hall, bedroom, two full baths and a living room with a workspace at one end and a dining area at the other.

That evening, silk moiré curtains drawn, cocktail set on marble table, I settle into the fringed sofa and smile at the antics of the monkeys in the Chinese prints by the console cum bar and TV. Four sumptuous, leather armchairs surround the dining table. However, when the bus person arrives with my dinner he pulls the table up to the window so I can enjoy the view.

In the wallpapered bedroom, heavy tasseled curtains conceal the window that looks out to the Bay. A partial canopy heads the bed. Black marble shines against white in both bathrooms highlighted by striking black Chinoiserie-framed mirrors.

[Hint: As a President's Club member—enrollment is free on the Fairmont web site—the use of the high-speed internet, local phone calls and the fully fitted-out fitness center is complimentary.]

On a quiet Sunday afternoon, perched on a lobby settee, Fairmont’s ghosts come haunting. First, I hear a pair of dowagers hung with silver furs whispering outrages at the Levis in the lobby, for in their day only miners and farmers wore blue jeans—and even then not to church.

Over by the doors, the Fair sisters’ ghosts are being a bit hoity-toity because their hotel is still grand after its first hundred years. The sisters built the hotel to memorialize James Fair, their very rich, no-good-swindler father who even swindled their mother out of her savings. They then stunned San Francisco by trading the nearly completed hotel to the Law brothers on April 6, 1906.

Quake. April 18, 1906. "I forgot the doomed city as I gazed at the Fairmont, a tremendous volume of white smoke pouring from where its roof had been, every window a shimmering sheet of gold: not a flame, not a spark shot forth. The Fairmont will never be as demonic in its beauty again," wrote Gertrude Atherton, watching from a boat in the bay.

Unshaken, the Laws announced the Fairmont would open in exactly one year. But then they knew that they would be trading it back again to the Fair sisters, as their agreement was only temporary to protect the hotel from various Fair divorce and estate litigations.

Over by the entrance, leaning against a marble column, the ghost of Julia Morgan seems content. A San Francisco born, Berkeley-educated engineer and Parisian École des Beaux-Arts architect, Morgan was hired to rebuild the damaged hotel in record time. And she did just that. Exactly one year after the quake, the Fairmont opened, becoming a symbol that San Francisco would rise again and in grand style.

Julia Morgan’s ghost, however, is most pleased that her charge has been restored. In 1947, a remodel covered the Laurel Court’s domes and murals with red paint adding a faux merry-go-round in the center. Charcoal gray paint covered the lobby walls, maroon and mauve carpeted the marble floors and crimson velvet cloaked the furniture. It gave The Fairmont what one critic called ‘the flossy bordello look." Others loved this "rakish" touch because it was "so new after the war."

Julia’s ghost was not amused.

In May of 1999, legions of craftsmen checked into the hotel to begin to recreate Morgan’s vision. Uncovering marble floors, ornate domes and intricate woodwork, they returned Laurel Court to its original design and the lobby to the grand public space of Morgan’s original.

For this, Julia is most grateful—and so am I.

 Kate Crawford      June 2008

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