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}} The Palace Hotel is a landmark historic hotel in San Francisco, California, located at the SW corner of Market and New Montgomery streets. Also referred to as the "New" Palace Hotel to distinguish it from the original 1875 Palace Hotel (which had been demolished after being gutted by the fire caused by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake) that it was built to replace, the present structure opened on December 19, 1909 on the site of its razed predecessor although the hotel was closed from January, 1989 to April, 1991 to undergo a two-year renovation and seismic retrofit. Occupying most of a city block, the now century old nine story hotel stands immediately adjacent to both the BART Montgomery Street Station and the Monadnock Building, and across Market Street from Lotta's Fountain.〔(''History of the Monadnock Building'' ) Monadnocksf.com〕 Palace Hotel is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. ==Original Palace Hotel (1875-1906)== The original Palace Hotel was built by San Francisco banker and entrepreneur William Chapman Ralston who heavily depended on his shaky banking empire to help finance the $5 million project. Although Ralston's Bank of California collapsed in late August 1875, and Ralston himself unexpectedly drowned in San Francisco Bay on the same day that he lost control of the institution, it did not interfere with the opening of the Palace Hotel two months later on October 2, 1875. Ralston's business partner in the project was U.S. Senator William Sharon who had helped cause the collapse of the Bank when he dumped his stock in the Comstock Lode. Sharon ended up in control of the hotel as well as both the Bank and Ralston's debts both of which he paid off at just pennies on the Dollar. With 755 guest rooms, the original Palace Hotel (also known colloquially as the "Bonanza Inn") was at the time of its construction the largest hotel in the Western United States. At in height, the hotel was San Francisco's tallest building for over a decade. The skylighted open center of the building featured a Grand Court overlooked by seven stories of white columned balconies which served as an elegant carriage entrance. Shortly after 1900 this area was converted into a lounge called the "Palm Court." The bartender, William "Cocktail" Boothby, was a fixture at the hotel for some years. The hotel featured large redwood paneled hydraulic elevators which were known as "rising rooms". Each guest room or suite was equipped with a private bathroom as well as an electric call button to summon a member of the hotel's staff. All guest rooms could be joined together to create suites, or to make up large apartments for long term residents, and the parlor of each guest room featured a large bay window overlooking the street below. The monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, King Kalakaua, died in this hotel on January 20, 1891. Financed primarily by Bank of California co-founder William Ralston, it offered many innovative modern conveniences including an intercom system and four oversized hydraulic elevators called lifting rooms. The most notable feature of the hotel was the Grand Court that served as an entry area for horse-drawn carriages. The area was converted to the palm filled "Garden Court" a few years before the 1906 earthquake.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=A Brief Illustrated History of the Palace Hotel of San Francisco )〕 ''"A palace truly! Where shall we find its equal? Windsor Hotel, good-bye! you must yield the palm to your great Western rival, as far as structure goes, though in all other respects you may keep the foremost place. There is no other hotel building in the world equal to this. The court of the Grand at Paris is poor compared to that of the Palace.〔The "Court" at the (InterContinental Paris Le Grand Hotel ) in Paris, France〕 Its general effect at night, when brilliantly lighted, is superb; its furniture, rooms and appointments are all fine, but then it tells you all over it was built to "whip all creation," and the millions of its lucky owner enabled him to triumph."'' .... Andrew Carnegie, ''Round the World''〔(Andrew Carnegie, ''Round the World'', The Project Gutenberg EBook )〕 Free guided tours of the hotel are led by volunteers of the San Francisco City Guides, a program of the San Francisco Public Library. Although the hotel survived the initial damage from the early morning April 18, 1906, San Francisco earthquake, by late that afternoon it had been consumed by the subsequent fires. Notably, tenor Enrico Caruso (who had sung the role of Don José in Carmen the night before) was staying in the hotel at the time of the quake, and swore never to return to the city. The urban legend is Caruso, "stood in his nightshirt holding a personally autographed photograph of President Theodore Roosevelt and demanded special treatment." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Palace Hotel, San Francisco」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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