St. Francis Hotel
Encyclopedia
The Westin St. Francis is a historic luxury hotel
located on Powell and Geary Streets on Union Square
in San Francisco, California
. The two twelve-story south wings of the hotel were built just before the San Francisco Earthquake, in 1904, and the double-width north wing was completed in 1913, initially as apartments for permanent guests. The 32-story
, 120 m (393.7 ft) tower to the rear completed in 1972 features exterior glass elevators that offer panoramic views of the bay and the square below, making the St. Francis one of the largest hotels in the city, with more than 1,200 rooms and suites.
The St. Francis Hotel was begun by the trustees of the estate of Charles Crocker
, one of "The Big Four" railroad magnates who had built the western portion of the transcontinental railway. It was built as an investment for Crocker's two young children, Templeton Crocker and Jenny Crocker. It was originally meant to be called The Crocker Hotel, but instead it took the name of one of the earliest San Francisco Gold Rush
hotels, the St. Francis.
"Designed by Bliss and Faville, the St. Francis followed the style pioneered by architect Louis Sullivan
in Chicago; its simple face was bare of the bric-a-brac and ornamental frosting that made much of San Francisco look like a baroque toy shop." The Hotel opened on March 21, 1904, and, along with the older Palace Hotel on Market Street, immediately became one of the city's most prestigious addresses.
The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 badly frightened the guests, but did no structural damage to the hotel. John Farish, a mining engineer staying at the hotel, described the experience: "I was awakened by a loud rumbling noise which could be compared to the mixed sound of a strong wind rushing through a forest and the breaking of waves against a cliff...there began a series of the liveliest motions imagineable, accompanied by a creaking, grinding, rasping sound, followed by tremendous crashes as the cornices of adjoining buildings and chimneys tottered to the ground."
The earthquake lasted 55 seconds. A hotel page described the pandemonium inside the hotel: "I found the floor crowded with screaming guests running every which way. As the elevators were all out of order the guests headed for the marble stairs, which were broken and cracked and falling below." The hotel manager, James Woods, wearing his bathrobe, tried to calm the guests, but most of them rushed outside onto Union Square. Later in the morning, opera singer Enrico Caruso and Alfred Hertz
, the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony
, who was hosting a tour by Caruso, who were both staying at the nearby Palace Hotel, fled the Palace and came to the St. Francis, where the restaurant was still open for breakfast. Caruso carried with him a signed photograph of President Theodore Roosevelt, and swore he would never return to San Francisco; he never did.
The earthquake did not cause major structural damage to the hotel, but it did begin a series of fires along the waterfront which began to sweep west across the city. It also broke the water mains, so firemen were unable to fight the fires. An hour after midnight the fire reached Union Square and gutted the hotel.
When the fire was finally put out three days later, it was found that the St. Francis had suffered little serious damage. The copper cornice had been warped, and some of the enamelled facing bricks had fallen off in the heat, but otherwise the building was intact. Reconstruction began almost immediately. A small temporary hotel, the little St. Francis, with 110 rooms, was built in the middle of Union Square, to house temporary guests. The hotel re-opened in late 1907.
After its re-opening, the St. Francis hosted dozens of celebrities who came to San Francisco to see the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915, ranging from Helen Keller
, three-time Presidential candidate and orator William Jennings Bryan
, who came to San Francisco to speak against American involvement in the First World War, and former baseball player and evangelist Billy Sunday
, who came to San Francisco to denounce sin
and the theory of evolution. Former President Theodore Roosevelt
stayed at the hotel in July 1915, and used the occasion to denounce his bitter enemy, President Woodrow Wilson
, and to call for American entry into the War.
In September 1919, President Woodrow Wilson
stayed at the St. Francis as he toured the country as part of his unsuccessful effort to win support for American entry into the League of Nations
. The 1920 Democratic National Convention
was held in San Francisco, and several presidential candidates stayed at the St. Francis, including another visit from William Jennings Bryan.
During the 1920s, the St. Francis became the fashionable place to stay for celebrities and film actors coming from Hollywood. St. Francis guests included silent film stars Charlie Chaplin
, Douglas Fairbanks
, Mary Pickford
, cowboy star Tom Mix
, Mabel Normand
, Fatty Arbuckle
, and directors D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille
.Other guests included novelist Sinclair Lewis
, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, circus impresarios the Ringling Brothers
, dancer Isadora Duncan
, songwriter George M. Cohan
, and Duke Kahanamoku
, the champion swimmer of the world, who popularized the sport of surfing
.
One of the appeals of the St. Francis was its jazz orchestra, led by a young musician named Art Hickman
. He played in the Rose Room of the hotel, before going on to greater fame at the New York Biltmore Hotel
and the roof garden of the New Amsterdam Theatre
. During his time at the St. Francis, he helped popularize such musicians as Paul Whiteman
and Ferde Grofe
who, after leaving the St. Francis orchestra, went on to compose the Grand Canyon Suite
.
Part of the fame of the St. Francis was due to its legendary chef, Victor Hirtzler
. Hirtzler learned to cook in Strasbourg
, France, and then cooked for royal courts across Europe. According to Hirtzler, he had created a dish for King Carlos I of Portugal
, called La Mousse Faisan Lucullus, a mousse of Bavarian pheasant
's breast and woodcock
flavored with truffles, with a sauce of cognac
, Madeira
and champagne. The dish was so expensive, and the King ate it so frequently, that he bankrupted Portugal twice and was assassinated in 1908, followed by the downfall of Portuguese monarchy in 1910. Victor moved to New York, became the Chef of the Waldorf Hotel, and then was persuaded by the manager of the St. Francis, James Woods, to move to San Francisco.
In 1916 Hirtzler again cooked a dish which had political consequences. The Crocker family were fervent Republicans, and they hosted a dinner at the hotel for Charles Evans Hughes
, the Republican candidate for President of the United States, who was locked in a close race with incumbent Woodrow Wilson
. Twenty minutes before the banquet began, the waiters, who were members of the culinary workers union, went on strike. Hughes wondered if the banquet should be canceled, but Hirtzler insisted upon it going ahead, and served the meal himself. When the Union learned that Hughes had crossed a picket line and eaten the dinner, they distributed thousands of leaflets denouncing him as anti-union. On election night, Hughes went to bed believing he had won the election. The next morning he awoke and learned that he had lost California by only 3,673 votes, and by losing California had lost the election to Wilson. The margin of his defeat was less than the turnout of union voters in San Francisco. By saving the dinner, Hirtzler had lost the election for Hughes.
In 1921, the St. Francis was the scene of Hollywood's first great scandal. The silent film comedian Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, whose fame at the time rivaled that of Charlie Chaplin, and a number of friends were guests in rooms 1219, 1220 and 1221. On September 5, 1921, they had a party in their suite, with friends and acquaintances from Hollywood. One guest was a young actress from Hollywood named Virginia Rappe
. In mid-afternoon Arbuckle summoned a house doctor and reported that Virginia Rappe was sick, and the young woman was taken to another room and put to bed. Arbuckle himself went to a personal appearance at a movie theater, and returned to Hollywood the next day.
A few days later Arbuckle learned that Virginia Rappe had been taken to the hospital and had died, and that a friend of the young woman, Maude Delmont, who had been at the party, claimed to police that Arbuckle had assaulted and raped her. (Delmont's testimony was later regarded as unreliable by the police, when it was discovered Delmont had a lengthy prior record of extortion. She was not called as a witness.) The story was soon in the headlines of newspapers around the United States. "Girl Dead in Wild Party at Hotel" was the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle, and "S.F. Booze Party Kills Young Actress" was the headline in the San Francisco Examiner.
Arbuckle was brought to trial for manslaughter in December 1921 in one of the most publicized trials California had ever known. Arbuckle's lawyers argued that Virginia Rappe had died of natural causes, caused by too much alcohol. The jury was unable to reach a verdict. Arbuckle's second trial also ended in a hung jury, but he was found innocent by a third jury in under five minutes.
Arbuckle was free, but his career was ruined. His films were withdrawn by Will Hays, the President of the Motion Pictures Producers Association, and what became known as the Hays Office began the systematic censorship of American motion pictures, as a result of the Arbuckle affair.
, in San Francisco Bay, attracted many celebrities to San Francisco and to the St. Francis. Salvador Dali
posed for newspaper photographers in the bathtub of his hotel room, with a lobster on his head, holding a cabbage in one hand, and wearing a pair of emerald-green goggles, and Cary Grant
stayed in the hotel, entertaining friends with scenes from Noel Coward's play Private Lives
.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor
, San Francisco became a major transit point for soldiers and sailors going to the Pacific Theater of the War. The shops in the lobby of the St. Francis were turned into small rooms for military officers. Hundreds of soldiers, sailors and officers danced in the Mural Room of the St. Francis to the big band music of Harry Owens
and the Royal Hawaiians, and his vocalist, Hilo Hattie
.
In April 1945 the St. Francis played host to twenty-seven delegations attending the founding meeting of the United Nations
, held in the San Francisco Opera House. The St. Francis was host to the delegations from Iran, Canada, Turkey, Egypt and France, represented by French foreign minister Georges Bidault
, who stayed in the same suite where the Fatty Arbuckle scandal had taken place. The St. Francis also hosted several Latin American delegations, along with the U.S. Undersecretary of State for the Americas, Nelson Rockefeller
. The Soviet delegation, led by Soviet foreign minister V.M. Molotov, and the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Andrei Gromyko
, also stayed at the St. Francis.
, who received a tumultuous welcome when he returned from Korea
after having been dismissed from command by President Harry Truman. Entertainer Al Jolson
died while playing cards at his suite at the St. Francis on October 23, 1950 -- Jolson had just returned from entertaining the troops in Korea.
The St. Francis was still owned by the Crocker family until the end of middle of World War II, when the Crocker family sold it to hotel magnate Ben Swig, who then sold it to Edwin B. DeGolia. In 1954, the hotel became the twenty-third property of the Western Hotel Chain, based in the Pacific Northwest, which eventually became the Western International and then Westin Hotels.
With its acquisition by Western Hotels, the hotel was changed from a home of elderly San Francisco socialites, some of whom lived in large suites in the hotel, to a modern hotel focusing on tourism and especially conventions. The old Mural Room, decorated by Albert Herter
in 1913 with seven murals comprising The Pageant of Nations, a banquet and ballroom which had hosted many of America's famous big bands, was replaced in 1970 by a six hundred room tower, designed to help the St. Francis compete with The Fairmont
, its rival on nearby Nob Hill. Architect William Pereira
designed the new building which was completed in 1972. The murals were rolled up and removed to storage.
The St. Francis became the hotel where Republican presidents stayed when in San Francisco, while Democratic presidents usually stayed at the Fairmont. President Gerald Ford
was almost shot while leaving the hotel in September, 1975 by a woman named Sara Jane Moore
. A former Marine named Oliver Sipple
moved her hand so that Ford was not hit. President Ronald Reagan
was a frequent guest of the hotel. The St. Francis also hosted many world leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Emperor Hirohito of Japan.
Local 2, representing San Francisco hotel workers, asked the public to boycott the Westin St. Francis Hotel because the hotel's owner, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide had not renewed a previously settled contract with workers with respect to wages, benefits, and working conditions. The hotel was one of eight in San Francisco being boycotted, and was scene to many protests including picketing and even a flash mob
.
, the first in the Western United States
, and celebrity chef
Michael Mina
's Bourbon Steakhouse restaurant, which replaced his self-named restaurant and was formerly the Compass Rose and before that the Patent Leather Bar, designed by Timothy L. Pflueger
.
The hotel displays a small collection of photographic prints produced by Ansel Adams
to advertise the former Patent Leather Bar, and keeps some old traditions such as an official hotel historian
and the industry only remaining coin cleaning service for guests.
A collection of hotel memorabilia is on display in the lobby, arranged by decade and featuring items such as vintage keys, dining ware, room service bills, photographs, media articles, and more.
Hotel
A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. The provision of basic accommodation, in times past, consisting only of a room with a bed, a cupboard, a small table and a washstand has largely been replaced by rooms with modern facilities, including en-suite bathrooms...
located on Powell and Geary Streets on Union Square
Union Square, San Francisco, California
Union Square is a plaza of bordered by Geary, Powell, Post and Stockton Streets in San Francisco, California. "Union Square" also refers to the central shopping, hotel, and theater district that surrounds the plaza for several blocks. The area got its name because it was once used for rallies and...
in San Francisco, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. The two twelve-story south wings of the hotel were built just before the San Francisco Earthquake, in 1904, and the double-width north wing was completed in 1913, initially as apartments for permanent guests. The 32-story
Story
Story or Stories may refer to:*Story, a recounting of a sequence of events* Narrative* Bedtime story, a traditional form of storytelling, told to children to prepare them for sleep* Organization story, a narrative used in organization studies...
, 120 m (393.7 ft) tower to the rear completed in 1972 features exterior glass elevators that offer panoramic views of the bay and the square below, making the St. Francis one of the largest hotels in the city, with more than 1,200 rooms and suites.
History
Charles Crocker
Charles Crocker was an American railroad executive.-Early years:Crocker was born in Troy, New York, to a modest family and moved to an Indiana farm at age 14. He soon became independent, working on several farms, a sawmill, and at an iron forge. In 1845 he founded a small, independent iron...
, one of "The Big Four" railroad magnates who had built the western portion of the transcontinental railway. It was built as an investment for Crocker's two young children, Templeton Crocker and Jenny Crocker. It was originally meant to be called The Crocker Hotel, but instead it took the name of one of the earliest San Francisco Gold Rush
San Francisco Gold Rush
The San Francisco Goldrush are the cheerleading squad of the NFL's San Francisco 49ers.They were founded in 1983 as one of the first cheerleading squads for a professional football team. They have not only performed throughout the United States, but they are also very involved in many charitable...
hotels, the St. Francis.
"Designed by Bliss and Faville, the St. Francis followed the style pioneered by architect Louis Sullivan
Louis Sullivan
Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
in Chicago; its simple face was bare of the bric-a-brac and ornamental frosting that made much of San Francisco look like a baroque toy shop." The Hotel opened on March 21, 1904, and, along with the older Palace Hotel on Market Street, immediately became one of the city's most prestigious addresses.
1906 earthquake
Alfred Hertz
Alfred Hertz , a German conductor born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. As a child, he contracted infantile paralysis and walked with a cane after that....
, the conductor of the San Francisco Symphony
San Francisco Symphony
The San Francisco Symphony is an orchestra based in San Francisco, California. Since 1980, the orchestra has performed at the Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus are part of the organization...
, who was hosting a tour by Caruso, who were both staying at the nearby Palace Hotel, fled the Palace and came to the St. Francis, where the restaurant was still open for breakfast. Caruso carried with him a signed photograph of President Theodore Roosevelt, and swore he would never return to San Francisco; he never did.
The earthquake did not cause major structural damage to the hotel, but it did begin a series of fires along the waterfront which began to sweep west across the city. It also broke the water mains, so firemen were unable to fight the fires. An hour after midnight the fire reached Union Square and gutted the hotel.
When the fire was finally put out three days later, it was found that the St. Francis had suffered little serious damage. The copper cornice had been warped, and some of the enamelled facing bricks had fallen off in the heat, but otherwise the building was intact. Reconstruction began almost immediately. A small temporary hotel, the little St. Francis, with 110 rooms, was built in the middle of Union Square, to house temporary guests. The hotel re-opened in late 1907.
Through the Jazz Age
Helen Keller
Helen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree....
, three-time Presidential candidate and orator William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
, who came to San Francisco to speak against American involvement in the First World War, and former baseball player and evangelist Billy Sunday
Billy Sunday
William Ashley "Billy" Sunday was an American athlete who, after being a popular outfielder in baseball's National League during the 1880s, became the most celebrated and influential American evangelist during the first two decades of the 20th century.Born into poverty in Iowa, Sunday spent some...
, who came to San Francisco to denounce sin
Sin
In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
and the theory of evolution. Former President Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
stayed at the hotel in July 1915, and used the occasion to denounce his bitter enemy, President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
, and to call for American entry into the War.
In September 1919, President Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
stayed at the St. Francis as he toured the country as part of his unsuccessful effort to win support for American entry into the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
. The 1920 Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention
The Democratic National Convention is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 national convention...
was held in San Francisco, and several presidential candidates stayed at the St. Francis, including another visit from William Jennings Bryan.
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
, Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
, cowboy star Tom Mix
Tom Mix
Thomas Edwin "Tom" Mix was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. He made a reported 336 films between 1910 and 1935, all but nine of which were silent features...
, Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand
Mabel Normand was an American silent film comedienne and actress. She was a popular star of Mack Sennett's Keystone Studios and is noted as one of the film industry's first female screenwriters, producers and directors...
, Fatty Arbuckle
Fatty Arbuckle
Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screenwriter. Starting at the Selig Polyscope Company he eventually moved to Keystone Studios where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd...
, and directors D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil Blount DeMille was an American film director and Academy Award-winning film producer in both silent and sound films. He was renowned for the flamboyance and showmanship of his movies...
.Other guests included novelist Sinclair Lewis
Sinclair Lewis
Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. In 1930, he became the first writer from the United States to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for his vigorous and graphic art of description and his ability to create, with wit and humor, new types of...
, the first American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, circus impresarios the Ringling Brothers
Ringling brothers
The Ringling brothers were seven siblings who transformed their small touring company of performers into one of America's largest circuses in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in McGregor, Iowa and raised in Baraboo, Wisconsin, they were the children of Heinrich Friedrich August Ringling...
, dancer Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...
, songwriter George M. Cohan
George M. Cohan
George Michael Cohan , known professionally as George M. Cohan, was a major American entertainer, playwright, composer, lyricist, actor, singer, dancer, and producer....
, and Duke Kahanamoku
Duke Kahanamoku
Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku was a Hawaiian swimmer, actor, lawman, early beach volleyball player and businessman credited with spreading the sport of surfing. He was a five-time Olympic medalist in swimming.-Early years:The name "Duke" is not a title, but a given name...
, the champion swimmer of the world, who popularized the sport of surfing
Surfing
Surfing' is a surface water sport in which the surfer rides a surfboard on the crest and face of a wave which is carrying the surfer towards the shore...
.
One of the appeals of the St. Francis was its jazz orchestra, led by a young musician named Art Hickman
Art Hickman
Arthur G. Hickman was a drummer, pianist, and band leader whose orchestra is sometimes seen as an ancestor to Big band music. It fits into what are termed "sweet bands", something like that of Paul Whiteman. His orchestra is also credited, perhaps dubiously, with being among the first jazz bands....
. He played in the Rose Room of the hotel, before going on to greater fame at the New York Biltmore Hotel
New York Biltmore Hotel
The New York Biltmore Hotel was a luxury hotel in New York City. It was one of three palatial hotels built as part of the Terminal City development...
and the roof garden of the New Amsterdam Theatre
New Amsterdam Theatre
The New Amsterdam Theatre is a Broadway theater located at 214 West 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues in the Theatre District of Manhattan, New York City, off of Times Square...
. During his time at the St. Francis, he helped popularize such musicians as Paul Whiteman
Paul Whiteman
Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...
and Ferde Grofe
Ferde Grofé
Ferde Grofé was a prominent American composer, arranger and pianist. During the 1920s and 1930s, he went by the name Ferdie Grofé.-Early life:...
who, after leaving the St. Francis orchestra, went on to compose the Grand Canyon Suite
Grand Canyon Suite
The Grand Canyon Suite is a suite for orchestra by Ferde Grofé, composed during the period from 1929 to 1931. It consists of five parts or movements, each an evocation in tone of a particular scene typical of the Grand Canyon...
.
Part of the fame of the St. Francis was due to its legendary chef, Victor Hirtzler
Victor Hirtzler
Victor Hirtzler was a French chef who was head chef of San Francisco, California's St. Francis Hotel from its opening in 1904 until 1926...
. Hirtzler learned to cook in Strasbourg
Strasbourg
Strasbourg is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern France and is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking,...
, France, and then cooked for royal courts across Europe. According to Hirtzler, he had created a dish for King Carlos I of Portugal
Carlos I of Portugal
-Assassination:On 1 February 1908 the royal family returned from the palace of Vila Viçosa to Lisbon. They travelled by train to Barreiro and, from there, they took a steamer to cross the Tagus River and disembarked at Cais do Sodré in central Lisbon. On their way to the royal palace, the open...
, called La Mousse Faisan Lucullus, a mousse of Bavarian pheasant
Pheasant
Pheasants refer to some members of the Phasianinae subfamily of Phasianidae in the order Galliformes.Pheasants are characterised by strong sexual dimorphism, males being highly ornate with bright colours and adornments such as wattles and long tails. Males are usually larger than females and have...
's breast and woodcock
Woodcock
The woodcocks are a group of seven or eight very similar living species of wading birds in the genus Scolopax. Only two woodcocks are widespread, the others being localized island endemics. Most are found in the Northern Hemisphere but a few range into Wallacea...
flavored with truffles, with a sauce of cognac
Cognac
Cognac is a commune in the Charente department in southwestern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department.-Geography:Cognac is situated on the river Charente between the towns of Angoulême and Saintes. The majority of the town has been built on the river's left bank, with the smaller right...
, Madeira
Madeira wine
Madeira is a fortified Portuguese wine made in the Madeira Islands. Some wines produced in small quantities in California and Texas are also referred to as "Madeira", or "Madera", although those wines do not conform to the EU PDO regulations...
and champagne. The dish was so expensive, and the King ate it so frequently, that he bankrupted Portugal twice and was assassinated in 1908, followed by the downfall of Portuguese monarchy in 1910. Victor moved to New York, became the Chef of the Waldorf Hotel, and then was persuaded by the manager of the St. Francis, James Woods, to move to San Francisco.
Charles Evans Hughes
Charles Evans Hughes, Sr. was an American statesman, lawyer and Republican politician from New York. He served as the 36th Governor of New York , Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States , United States Secretary of State , a judge on the Court of International Justice , and...
, the Republican candidate for President of the United States, who was locked in a close race with incumbent Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
. Twenty minutes before the banquet began, the waiters, who were members of the culinary workers union, went on strike. Hughes wondered if the banquet should be canceled, but Hirtzler insisted upon it going ahead, and served the meal himself. When the Union learned that Hughes had crossed a picket line and eaten the dinner, they distributed thousands of leaflets denouncing him as anti-union. On election night, Hughes went to bed believing he had won the election. The next morning he awoke and learned that he had lost California by only 3,673 votes, and by losing California had lost the election to Wilson. The margin of his defeat was less than the turnout of union voters in San Francisco. By saving the dinner, Hirtzler had lost the election for Hughes.
Fatty Arbuckle scandal
Virginia Rappe
Virginia Rappe was an American model and silent film actress.-Early life and career:Rappe was born to unwed mother Mabel Rapp in New York City. Mabel died when Virginia was 11, and Virginia was then raised by her grandmother in Chicago. At age 14 she began working as a commercial and art model in...
. In mid-afternoon Arbuckle summoned a house doctor and reported that Virginia Rappe was sick, and the young woman was taken to another room and put to bed. Arbuckle himself went to a personal appearance at a movie theater, and returned to Hollywood the next day.
A few days later Arbuckle learned that Virginia Rappe had been taken to the hospital and had died, and that a friend of the young woman, Maude Delmont, who had been at the party, claimed to police that Arbuckle had assaulted and raped her. (Delmont's testimony was later regarded as unreliable by the police, when it was discovered Delmont had a lengthy prior record of extortion. She was not called as a witness.) The story was soon in the headlines of newspapers around the United States. "Girl Dead in Wild Party at Hotel" was the headline in the San Francisco Chronicle, and "S.F. Booze Party Kills Young Actress" was the headline in the San Francisco Examiner.
Arbuckle was brought to trial for manslaughter in December 1921 in one of the most publicized trials California had ever known. Arbuckle's lawyers argued that Virginia Rappe had died of natural causes, caused by too much alcohol. The jury was unable to reach a verdict. Arbuckle's second trial also ended in a hung jury, but he was found innocent by a third jury in under five minutes.
Arbuckle was free, but his career was ruined. His films were withdrawn by Will Hays, the President of the Motion Pictures Producers Association, and what became known as the Hays Office began the systematic censorship of American motion pictures, as a result of the Arbuckle affair.
1930s and World War II
The 1939 World's Fair on Treasure IslandTreasure Island
Treasure Island is an adventure novel by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson, narrating a tale of "pirates and buried gold". First published as a book on May 23, 1883, it was originally serialized in the children's magazine Young Folks between 1881–82 under the title Treasure Island; or, the...
, in San Francisco Bay, attracted many celebrities to San Francisco and to the St. Francis. Salvador Dali
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
posed for newspaper photographers in the bathtub of his hotel room, with a lobster on his head, holding a cabbage in one hand, and wearing a pair of emerald-green goggles, and Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
stayed in the hotel, entertaining friends with scenes from Noel Coward's play Private Lives
Private Lives
Private Lives is a 1930 comedy of manners in three acts by Noël Coward. It focuses on a divorced couple who discover that they are honeymooning with their new spouses in neighbouring rooms at the same hotel. Despite a perpetually stormy relationship, they realise that they still have feelings for...
.
After the attack on Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
, San Francisco became a major transit point for soldiers and sailors going to the Pacific Theater of the War. The shops in the lobby of the St. Francis were turned into small rooms for military officers. Hundreds of soldiers, sailors and officers danced in the Mural Room of the St. Francis to the big band music of Harry Owens
Harry Owens
Harry Owens was an American composer, bandleader and songwriter.-Biography:Harry Robert Owens was born April 18, 1902, in O'Neill, Nebraska. He learned how to play a cornet in a small band on an Indian reservation in Montana.-Early years:He worked the vaudeville circuit by age 14. Owens studied...
and the Royal Hawaiians, and his vocalist, Hilo Hattie
Hilo Hattie
Hilo Hattie was born Clarissa "Clara" Haili in Honolulu, Hawaii. She was a Hawaiian singer, hula dancer, actress and comedian of 100% Native Hawaiian ancestry.-Early life and career:...
.
In April 1945 the St. Francis played host to twenty-seven delegations attending the founding meeting of the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, held in the San Francisco Opera House. The St. Francis was host to the delegations from Iran, Canada, Turkey, Egypt and France, represented by French foreign minister Georges Bidault
Georges Bidault
Georges-Augustin Bidault was a French politician. During World War II, he was active in the French Resistance. After the war, he served as foreign minister and prime minister on several occasions before he joined the Organisation armée secrète.-Early life:...
, who stayed in the same suite where the Fatty Arbuckle scandal had taken place. The St. Francis also hosted several Latin American delegations, along with the U.S. Undersecretary of State for the Americas, Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was the 41st Vice President of the United States , serving under President Gerald Ford, and the 49th Governor of New York , as well as serving the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations in a variety of positions...
. The Soviet delegation, led by Soviet foreign minister V.M. Molotov, and the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Gromyko
Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1987. In the West he was given the...
, also stayed at the St. Francis.
1950s to the present
In April 1951, the St. Francis hosted General Douglas MacArthurDouglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
, who received a tumultuous welcome when he returned from Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
after having been dismissed from command by President Harry Truman. Entertainer Al Jolson
Al Jolson
Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
died while playing cards at his suite at the St. Francis on October 23, 1950 -- Jolson had just returned from entertaining the troops in Korea.
The St. Francis was still owned by the Crocker family until the end of middle of World War II, when the Crocker family sold it to hotel magnate Ben Swig, who then sold it to Edwin B. DeGolia. In 1954, the hotel became the twenty-third property of the Western Hotel Chain, based in the Pacific Northwest, which eventually became the Western International and then Westin Hotels.
With its acquisition by Western Hotels, the hotel was changed from a home of elderly San Francisco socialites, some of whom lived in large suites in the hotel, to a modern hotel focusing on tourism and especially conventions. The old Mural Room, decorated by Albert Herter
Albert Herter
Albert Herter was an artist and painter. He was born in New York, New York, and studied in Paris and then in New York's Art Students League...
in 1913 with seven murals comprising The Pageant of Nations, a banquet and ballroom which had hosted many of America's famous big bands, was replaced in 1970 by a six hundred room tower, designed to help the St. Francis compete with The Fairmont
The Fairmont San Francisco
The Fairmont San Francisco is a luxury hotel at 950 Mason Street, atop Nob Hill in San Francisco, California. The hotel was named after mining magnate and U.S. Senator James Graham Fair , by his daughters Theresa Fair Oelrichs and Virginia Fair Vanderbilt who built the hotel in his honor. The hotel...
, its rival on nearby Nob Hill. Architect William Pereira
William Pereira
William Leonard Pereira was an American architect from Chicago, Illinois, of Portuguese ancestry who was noted for his futuristic designs of landmark buildings such as the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco...
designed the new building which was completed in 1972. The murals were rolled up and removed to storage.
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
was almost shot while leaving the hotel in September, 1975 by a woman named Sara Jane Moore
Sara Jane Moore
Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford on September 22, 1975, outside the St...
. A former Marine named Oliver Sipple
Oliver Sipple
Oliver "Billy" W. Sipple was a decorated US Marine and Vietnam War veteran widely known for saving the life of US President Gerald Ford during an assassination attempt by Sara Jane Moore in San Francisco on September 22, 1975...
moved her hand so that Ford was not hit. President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
was a frequent guest of the hotel. The St. Francis also hosted many world leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Emperor Hirohito of Japan.
Labor relations
Beginning in November 2009 Unite HereUNITE HERE
UNITE HERE is a labor union in the United States and Canada with more than 265,000 active members The union's members work predominantly in the hotel, food service, laundry, warehouse, and casino gaming industries...
Local 2, representing San Francisco hotel workers, asked the public to boycott the Westin St. Francis Hotel because the hotel's owner, Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide had not renewed a previously settled contract with workers with respect to wages, benefits, and working conditions. The hotel was one of eight in San Francisco being boycotted, and was scene to many protests including picketing and even a flash mob
Flash mob
A flash mob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and sometimes seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, artistic expression...
.
The hotel today
The hotel is distinctive for a historic lobby master clockMaster clock
A master clock is a precision clock that provides timing signals to synchronize slave clocks as part of a clock network. The master clock in such installations is controlled by an accurate quartz crystal oscillator, usually referenced to an external frequency standard such as MSF, which is part of...
, the first in the Western United States
Western United States
.The Western United States, commonly referred to as the American West or simply "the West," traditionally refers to the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. Because the U.S. expanded westward after its founding, the meaning of the West has evolved over time...
, and celebrity chef
Celebrity chef
A celebrity chef is a kitchen chef who has become famous and well known. Today celebrity chefs often become celebrities by presenting cookery advice and demonstrations via mass media, especially television. Historically, celebrity chefs have included Antoine Carême and Martino da Como.-External...
Michael Mina
Michael Mina
Michael Mina is an award-winning American celebrity chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author. He is the executive chef at his two namesake restaurants in San Francisco and Las Vegas, Nevada, and partners with Andre Agassi in Mina Group, a restaurant management company that owns 16 restaurants in...
's Bourbon Steakhouse restaurant, which replaced his self-named restaurant and was formerly the Compass Rose and before that the Patent Leather Bar, designed by Timothy L. Pflueger
Timothy L. Pflueger
Timothy Ludwig Pflueger was a prominent architect, interior designer and architectural lighting designer in the San Francisco Bay Area in the first half of the 20th century. Together with James R...
.
The hotel displays a small collection of photographic prints produced by Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....
to advertise the former Patent Leather Bar, and keeps some old traditions such as an official hotel historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
and the industry only remaining coin cleaning service for guests.
A collection of hotel memorabilia is on display in the lobby, arranged by decade and featuring items such as vintage keys, dining ware, room service bills, photographs, media articles, and more.