National Register #02000373
Fairmont Hotel
950 Mason Street At California
Built 1906
The Fairmont Hotel is notable for its architecture by Reid & Reid and Julia Morgan and for
being one of the few Nob Hill survivors of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire.
The Fairmont Hotel was conceived and financed by Tessie Fair Oelrichs, the daughter of
Senator James G. Fair, who made his fortune in the Comstock silver mines. She hired
James and Merrit Reid to design a six-hundred room hotel in the Italian Renaissance style.
In early 1906, before the hotel had opened, Ms. Fair traded it for other property. The new owners,
Herbert and Hartland Law, planned to open it in the autumn of 1906.
The 1906 Earthquake and Fire damaged the Fairmont to the point that many experts thought that
it could not be salvaged. Herbert Law, determined to repair the hotel, hired New York architect
Stanford White who was shot and killed a few weeks after being hired. Mr. Law then hired a young
architect named Julia Morgan.
The Fairmont is also San Francisco Landmark 185.
|
)
