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Overview

The Lick House was one of San Francisco's first luxury hotels, built by the piano maker/real estate investor James Lick, who was one of California's wealthiest men of his day. It was one of a cluster of luxury hotels erected in San Francisco during the early-to-mid-1860s, the others being the Russ House (completed in 1862), Occidental Hotel. and Cosmopolitan Hotel (1865). These hotels reflected the city's less rambunctious and more affluent character brought about by Gold Rush prosperity. The Lick House gained fame for its grand atrium dining room, whose scale and magnificence presaged that of the opulent Palm Court of the later Palace Hotel #1. The Lick House #1 perished in the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 04/18/1906, lasting 44 years.

Building History

Important symbols of civic progress, large-scale, luxurious hotels appeared in San Francisco during the Civil War. A quartet of significant edifices was about to be built in the vicinity of Bush and Montgomery Streets, as noted by a 06/01/1861 article in the Daily Alta California newspaper. It wrote ebulliently on its front page: “The hitherto yawning chasms on the corners of Montgomery and Bush, Pine and Montgomery, and Montgomery and Sutter streets are fast filling up with brick, stone, mortar and timbers. The sound of the axe, hammer, chisel, and adze, in the hands of an army of workmen, are heard from morn to eve. The busy hum of the industry breaks refreshing on the ear of the artisan and laborer. The rapidly rising structures attest that the march of our city’s progress is unparalleled. The stranger visitor, as he witnesses these evidences of enterprise, is naturally and correctly impressed with the idea, that the future greatness and prosperity of the Occidental Capital is placed beyond a peradventure. As was above remarked, the southern portion of Montgomery street is undergoing vast improvements. During the last six months, the corner of Market street has been adorned with a unique and substantial structure, and on the opposite side of the street the Masonic Temple is fast exhibiting its mammoth and graceful proportions.”

The 1861 Daily Alta Californiaarticle continued about a development bankrolled by California's wealthiest man, the landowner and flour mill operator, James Lick (1796-1876): “The lot on which lately stood the Mechanics’ Pavilion, as our readers are aware, is to be occupied by an elegant three-story hotel. According to the plans of Mr. Lick, there will be a frontage of two hundred feet on Montgomery street, one hundred and sixty feet on Sutter street, and two hundred feet on Lick street, with a court of sixty by one hundred and twenty feet—making a frontage of five hundred and sixty feet, with an average depth of seventy feet. The dining room is intended to seat one hundred and eighty persons, and throughout the internal arrangements and accommodations are to correspond with the grandeur and beauty of the exterior. The building will cost upwards of $125,000.” (See “City Items: Montgomery Street Improvements,” Daily Alta California, vol. 13, no. 4214, 06/01/1861, p. 1.)

Born in Stumpstown, PA, James Lick, the son of a carpenter, became a piano maker as a young man, opening a shop in New York, NY, and later Argentina. His businesses in Argentina and Peru prospered. He lived in South America until 1847, when he sailed north to San Francisco, CA. Lick arrived in 01/1848 and began buying land even before the Gold Rush. He invested in farmland and a flour mill, and bought land in Lake Tahoe, Los Angeles County and the whole of Santa Catalina Island. Late in life, Lick became a philanthropist, donating significant funds for public baths, the foundation of the California School of Mechanical Arts, and the deployment of an astronomical observatory to be administered by the University of California.

The web site of the Lick Observatory Historical Collections Project, noted that "Lick, although eccentric, could be decisive when necessary. Though known--and sometimes criticized --for his austere personal habits, Lick was capable of vision on a grand scale. Late in 1861 he began work on a hotel in San Francisco that came to be regarded as the finest west of the Mississippi. The dining room, with its seating for 400, was modeled after one which Lick had seen 35 years before in the palace at Versailles. Lick meticulously cut and placed much of the exquisite wood inlay in the dining room with his own hands. The magnificent hotel, known as Lick House, was destroyed in the great San Francisco fire which followed the earthquake of 1906." (See University of California, Lick Observatory Historical Collections.org "James Lick, the 'Generous Miser,'" accessed 02/21/2012.) Lick often wanted to underscore his presence architecturally. His $200,000 mill in Santa Clara was considerably grander and more complex than others nearby, and he envisioned a vast pyramid as his funerary monument in San Francisco larger than any in Egypt.

Alteration

San Francisco architect John Plant Gaynor (c. 1826-1888) designed an addition to the Lick House in 1867. (Thank you to art historian Ellen Halteman who noted that Gaynor was listed as the architect for the Lick House addition. She noted that it was mentioned in the San Francisco Bulletin, 02/21/1867. See email from Ellen Halteman to the author, 11/18/2021.)

Demolition

Between 1925 and 1927, the Hunter-Dulin Building by New York architects Schultze and Weaver was erected on the site of the Lick House Hotel #1.

PCAD id: 23416