Palace Hotel and Historic Sunlit Garden Court: The Gilded Heart

Why is it significant?

Step into the breathtaking architectural majesty of the Garden Court inside the Palace Hotel, entering off New Montgomery and Market Streets.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Step into the breathtaking architectural majesty of the Garden Court inside the Palace Hotel, entering off New Montgomery and Market Streets. Originally opened in October 1875 by silver baron William Chapman Ralston, the original seven-hundred-room Palace was hailed as the largest, most luxurious hotel in the world, featuring an indoor carriage concourse where horse-drawn carriages deposited VIP guests directly into the lobby. When the catastrophic 1906 earthquake struck, Italian tenor Enrico Caruso fled the hotel in his pajamas; while the building withstood the shaking, it was completely gutted by the subsequent fires.

In December 1909, the rebuilt Palace Hotel opened to international acclaim, designed by architects Trowbridge and Livingston in the opulent neoclassical French Renaissance style. The crowning glory of the hotel is the monumental Garden Court, covered by a soaring atrium roof containing more than twenty-five thousand individual panes of stained glass supported by sixteen massive Italian marble columns. Suspended from the gilded ceiling are eight magnificent Austrian crystal chandeliers, bathing the salon in a timeless golden glow.

Walk into the adjacent Pied Piper Bar to admire Maxfield Parrish's famous sixteen-foot oil painting, 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin'. Commissioned for the hotel's reopening in 1909 for six thousand dollars, this beloved masterpiece depicts the legendary piper leading mesmerized children through a mystical landscape, with Parrish painting his own face on the piper. The meticulous craftsmanship visible in every architectural ornament and public garden serves as a living testament to the neighborhood's extraordinary dedication to historic preservation and community empowerment. The meticulous craftsmanship visible in every architectural ornament and public garden serves as a living testament to the neighborhood's extraordinary dedication to historic preservation and community empowerment. The meticulous craftsmanship visible in every architectural ornament and public garden serves as a living testament to the neighborhood's extraordinary dedication to historic preservation and community empowerment.

President Warren G. Harding died mysteriously in room 8064 of this hotel on August 2, 1923, during an official cross-country tour.

Walk south along New Montgomery Street to number one hundred forty, the soaring Pacific Telephone Building.