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Overview

Palo Alto, CA, saw significant growth, physically and economically, during the 1920s. Its population rose from 5,900 in 1920 to 13,652 in 1930. The first apartment building was built in town by 1918, and, by 1926, ten more had been erected. A Palo Alto resident, too, had become President of the United States in 1928, Herbert Hoover, intensifying attention on it. The President Hotel, designed by local architect Birge M. Clark, was meant to honor Hoover's election, and to provide first-class accommodations for businesspeople and dignitaries visiting the area. (Birge Clark and his father Arthur had designed the Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover House in nearby Stanford, CA, in 1919-1920.) In the 1910s and 1920s, the construction of a large-scale, first-class hotel was viewed as clear evidence of town's maturity and commercial viability.

Alteration

AJ Capital Partners commissioned Berkeley-based ELS Architecture + Urban Design to supervise the renovation of the former apartment building back into the Graduate Hotel. The hotel enclosed about 56,000 square feet at the time of its renovation, and contained 100 rooms. Partner, Geno Yun, Senior Associate Dana Bazzi and Associate Yeganeh Shams formed the ELS design team responsible for leading the Graduate Palo Alto renovation.

PCAD id: 24906