Overview of the Collection
Historical Note:
Access Terms
Administrative Information
Arrangement of Materials:
Scope and Contents
Overview of the Collection
Collection Title: U. S. Grant Hotel Records
Dates: 1922-1977
Identification: MS-0256
Creator:
U.S. Grant Hotel
Physical Description: 6.43 linear ft
Language of Materials:
English
Repository:
Special Collections & University Archives
5500 Campanile Dr. MC 8050
San Diego, CA, 92182-8050
URL: http://library.sdsu.edu/scua
Email: scref@rohan.sdsu.edu
Phone: 619-594-6791
Historical Note:
Ulysses S. Grant, Jr. (1852-1929), son of the eighteenth President of the United States, arrived with his family in San Diego
in 1893. He soon became interested in real estate and decided to build a hotel in San Diego in honor of his father. His
wife, Fannie Chaffee Grant, purchased the Horton House, an existing hotel, in 1893. They planned to raze it and use the site
for a new hotel. The Horton House remained in operation until it was torn down in 1905. Architect Harrison Albright (1866-1933)
designed the new hotel, but because of lumber shortages resulting from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and Grant's personal
financial setbacks, construction was delayed. Mrs. Grant died in 1909, before the hotel was completed.
The U.S. Grant Hotel officially opened October 15, 1910. It had 437 rooms, 350 of which offered private baths, a roof garden
and palm court, bivouac grill, dining room, and Grand Ballroom. It also included two large salt-water swimming pools fed
by water piped up Broadway from the bay. Mr. Grant remarried in 1913, and he and his new wife became permanent residents
of the hotel in 1919. Though Mr. Grant died in 1929, the second Mrs. Grant remained a resident until her death in 1942.
Throughout its history many celebrities have stayed at the U.S. Grant Hotel, including several dignitaries visiting San Diego
for the Panama-California Exposition in 1915, and Charlie Chaplin in April 1917. Baron Long, an entrepreneur who held interests
in Agua-Caliente Hotel and Spa in Tijuana and the Biltmore in Los Angeles acquired partial ownership in 1919. He touted the
Biltmore and Grant as ideal places to stay while visiting across the border where gambling and alcohol were still legal. Long
elaborately redesigned much of the Grant Hotel's lower level in the late 1920s. In 1926, radio towers were erected on the
roof and much of the eleventh floor was converted to a radio station from which KFVW broadcasted.
Though the hotel did not prosper during the Great Depression, it still attracted guests. The 1935 California-Pacific International
Exposition in Balboa Park brought many visitors, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt. During WWII, some of the Grant's
guest accommodations became quarters for servicemen and their families, and the hotel became a popular meeting place for sailors.
Because of constant overcrowding, the Grant even sold blankets to those willing to sleep in the hallways. In 1944, Joseph
W. Drown bought the hotel for $3 million. Since then it has had many owners, including Loyola University (1945), Pacific
Mutual Life Insurance Company (1950), M. Bert Fisher (1958), Harry Woolf and Daniel Bernstein (1963), Vernon E. Shipp (1964),
and Roy Lake (1971).
In the mid-1950s, during a tourism boom, the Grant again underwent a major renovation. The Palm Court and roof garden were
enclosed and became the spacious and modern Palm Ballroom. The fountain from the Palm Court was removed to the Agua-Caliente
Racetrack. The goal of renovation had been to make the hotel more accommodating to automotive travelers and family vacationers,
but these years also saw the growth of Mission Valley's hotel industry, just a few miles northwest of downtown San Diego,
which lured many guests away from the Grant's downtown location.
In 1969, six women held a sit-in at the Grant's restaurant, the Grill, in order to protest its practice of not allowing women
patrons to dine at the restaurant before 3:00 p.m. This led to a discrimination lawsuit in 1972 and '73.
The hotel was scheduled for demolition in 1979, but Christopher Sickels of the CDS Grant Corporation purchased it, and made
plans to once again make major renovations. In July of that year the U.S. Grant Hotel was added to the
National Register of Historic Sites. The hotel closed from August 1982 through December 1985 until renovations were completed.
While these renovations brought back much of the hotel’s original elegance, financial difficulties still plagued it. In December
1993, Grand Heritage Hotels International acquired ownership. That company also renovated the hotel, and in 1994 the Grant
Hotel became the 104
th member of the elite Historic Hotels of America Program under the auspices of the congressionally charted National Trust for
Historic Preservation. In June of 2001, Wyndham International purchased the hotel and additional renovations were completed.
Finally, in December 2003, the Sycuan Band of Kumeyaay Indians purchased the hotel for $45 million, returning this parcel
of land to its original inhabitants' ancestors. It is still in operation.
Access Terms
This collection is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.
Topical Term:
Hotels -- California -- History -- Sources
Tourism--California--San Diego
Administrative Information
Acquisition Information:
1983-001
Conditions Governing Use:
The copyright interests in these materials have not been transferred to San Diego State University. Copyright resides with
the creators of materials contained in the collection or their heirs. The nature of historical archival and manuscript collections
is such that copyright status may be difficult or even impossible to determine. Requests for permission to publish must be
submitted to the Head of Special Collections, San Diego State University, Library and Information Access. When granted, permission
is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical item and is not intended to include or imply permission
of the copyright holder(s), which must also be obtained in order to publish. Materials from our collections are made available
for use in research, teaching, and private study. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including
but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials.
Conditions Governing Access:
This collecion is open for research.
Preferred Citation:
Identification of item, folder title, box number, U.S. Grant Hotel Records, Special Collections and University Archives, Library and Information Access, San Diego State University.
Related Materials:
San Diego Photograph Collection
Hotel del Coronado Records
San Diego Chamber of Commerce Records
Arrangement of Materials:
I. Monthly Financial Reports, 1922-64
II. Managing Director's Files, 1970-77
III. U.S. Grant Hotel Blueprints and Architectural Renderings, 1926-1970
Scope and Contents
The
U.S. Grant Hotel Records consist of financial reports, correspondence, purchase orders, and committee reports mostly documenting Roy Lake's management,
but including much earlier records, as well. The collection also includes blueprints and architectural renderings documenting
its numerous renovations. The U.S. Grant Hotel records date from 1922 to 1977. The blueprints and architectural renderings
date from 1926 to 1970. The collection is arranged in three series:
Monthly Financial Reports,
Managing Director's Files, and
Blueprints and Architectural Renderings.
Monthly Financial Reports (1922-1964) consists of bound volumes of the hotel's financial records, including expenditures, income, inventories and schedules.
Records are missing for the years 1923, 1925 to 1927, 1931, 1933 to 1936, 1939 to 1940, and September to November 1944. The
series is arranged chronologically.
Managing Director’s Files (1970-1977) contains the files and records used by Roy Lake, who served as managing director for the hotel beginning in 1970,
including some documents used and created by his predecessors. It includes items such as the legal documents from the discrimination
lawsuit, 1972-73; a copy of the Loyola University Foundation Lease, dated May 1945; records of the Restaurant – Hotel Employers’
Council, 1973 to 1977; records of the San Diego Convention and Visitors Bureau; the San Diego Convention Center, dates; and
planning notes from the U.S. Grant Grill 25th anniversary party, 1976 to 1977. The series is arranged alphabetically by file
name.
Blueprints and Architectural Renderings (1926-1970) consist of numerous architectural blueprints and renderings, arranged alphabetically by architect or company
name. Within folders, materials are organized by room or equipment type. Architects represented include Harrison Albright,
Al Goodman, Thomas Bouman, Kenneth Lind Associates, Earl Heitschmidt, Holmes & Narver, Design Consultants (DC), H. Milligan,
Frank L. Hope Associates, and many more. Blueprints with no discernable architect are in folders labeled "Unidentified Architects."
Items of note include a copy of one drawing by the original architect, Harrison Albright; the floor plans for the remodeling
that occurred to accommodate Radio Station KFSD dated 1939, and a colored drawing of the U.S. Grant exterior by Kenneth Lind
Associates. The blueprints include architectural plans documenting the Grant's original floor plans, renovations, equipment
layouts, and exterior drawings, as well as three folders containing specifications for several renovation projects.