The History of Fairmont
...e Fairmont, a tremendous volume of white smoke pouring from the roof, every window a shimmering sheet of gold; not a flame, nor a spark shot forth. The Fairmont will never be as demonic in its beauty again.’ (http://www.fairmont.com/FA/en/CDA/Home/AboutFairmont) The brothers then made plans to repair, restore and redecorate where necessary. Exactly one year later they had a grand banquet to celebrate the opening of the Hotel. The opening was at the Fairmont itself, with 600 pounds of turtle, 13,000 oysters and $5,000 worth of California and French wines. There were fireworks and thousands of ships at anchor in the Bay. In May of 1908, Tessie (Fair) Oelrichs was once again the owner of the San Francisco Fairmont. President Teddy Roosevelt and President Taft as well as Rudolph Valentino were welcomed by Tessie during this time. In 1917 D.M. Linnard became manager, and then ended up buying the hotel from the Oelrichs family. In 1929 he sold the hotel to George Smith, a mining engineer who had built the Mark Hopkins Hotel. In 1941, D.M. Linnard repurchased the Fairmont and re-sold again this time to a man named Benjamin Swig in 1945. With this, Swig started building an excellent portfolio of hotels, which include the Grunewald, now known as The Fairmont New Orleans and the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Ben Swig decided that the San Francisco Fairmont needed to be upgraded, so he called in one of the most famous decorators at the time, Dorothy Draper, who transformed the lobby and the public areas. The Fairmont had its grand reopening in 1947, and in 1961 another section of the Fairmont was opened, it was a 23 story tower designed by Mario Gaidano. It held San Francisco’s first glass elevator which took guests up to the Crown Room at the top of the tower where they found San Francisco’s most beautiful view. Every U.S president since William Howard Taft has taken residence in San Francisco. Greeting the 21st Century with an award-winning $85 million restoration, the San Francisco Fairmont once again made history. As the Fairmont’s reputation grew so did the collection of hotels bearing its name. In May of 1999 Fairmont Hotels merged with Canadian Pacific Hotels to for Fairmont Hotels & Resorts which is now the...