In 1880, Charles Crocker built a grand resort hotel here on property owned by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. The Old Del Monte golf course, which opened in 1897, is the oldest continuously operating golf course west of the Mississippi River.

In 1918, Lewis P. Hobart and Clarence A. Tantau of San Francisco designed a Roman Plunge Pool Complex.

In 1926, after the loss of the first two stick-style resort hotels in fires, the third Hotel Del Monte, designed by Hobart and Tantau in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, opened for business.

During World War II, the Navy requisitioned the property for a training school. In 1947, the Navy purchased the property. In 1951, the Naval Postgraduate School moved here from Annapolis.

The former hotel is now Herrmann Hall, the central building of the Naval Postgraduate School.