SALTY AIR AND NOSTALGIA

A GRAND COMEBACK FOR A GRAND SEASIDE HOTEL

- DANIELLE PERGAMENT / NYT

To the people who know it, the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego is not a page of Californian history — it’s a chapter. Opened in 1888 by Elisha Babcock and Hampton Story, it was then the largest hotel in the world.

The owners set out to create a resort that would “be the talk of the Western world” — a 750-room Victorian right on the edge of the Pacific.

Charlie Chaplin, Judy Garland, Babe Ruth, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford — they all came to the Del, as it is known. Some Like It Hot, was shot at the hotel. Just up the coast from the hotel is the Naval Air Station North Island (as in Top Gun), and during World War II, the hotel housed naval officers for US$2 a day.

“The manager was worried they would lose money renting it so cheap but the officers more than made up for it in the bar,” said Gina Petrone, the hotel's heritage manager.

Since 2019, the hotel has been undergoing the largest, most ambitious renovation in its history. Meticulously, deliberately — and very expensively — it has been restored to its former glory, and next month, after six years and $550 million (18.4 billion baht), the renovation will be complete. (It is currently owned by the New York-based Blackstone Group.)

Construction crews have been pulling out drywall, removing layers and layers of paint, tearing out dropped ceilings and peeling back decades of previous renovations so the Del can reclaim its original grandeur.