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Overview

The San Francisco architectural firm of Johnston and Mooser designed the Occidental Hotel, completed in 1861. It was located on Bush Street, which in the 1860s became the home of two neighboring, high-quality hotels, the Occidental and Cosmopolitan.

Building History

Thomas J. Johnston and William S. Mooser designed the Occidental Hotel and the equally posh Russ House (1861-1862) in San Francisco, CA, for an increasingly upscale market seeking more refined hotels.

Philip McShane was the Manager of the Occidental Hotel in 1869. (See San Francisco, California, City Directory, 1869, p. 482.)

Langley’s San Francisco Directory for the Year, 1877, (p. 23) said of the Occidental Hotel: “This hotel occupies the entire frontage of the block on Montgomery, between Bush and Sutter. It is four stories high, is richly, elegantly, and tastefully furnished, and continues to be regarded, as of yore, one of the first-class hotels of the city. It will accommodate about six hundred guests.” The directory indicated that it was one of the seven leading hotels of the city, the others being the Baldwin, Grand Hotel, Palace Hotel, Cosmopolitan, Lick House and Commercial Hotel. Of these seven establishments, Henry Langley boasted: “Our seven leading hotels have an aggregate accommodating capacity of about six thousand. Probably in no other city in the world are there, proportionately, more first-class hotels, better kept and more liberally patronized, than in San Francisco. Our people believe in first-class accommodations, and liberally patronize such establishments. (See Langley’s San Francisco Directory for the Year 1877, p. 24.)

Building Notes

The fashionable Occidental Hotel provided space to accommodate the second City of Paris Dry Goods Store in 1860. This early department store, operated by the Verdier Brothers, became a San Francisco institution, closing finally in 1972. Architect James William Reid (1851-1943) stayed here just before the construction of the Hotel Del Coronado, Coronado, CA.

The philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) stayed at the Occidental Hotel in 1871. (See Harold Kirker, California's Architectural Frontier, [Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, Incorporated, 1986], p. 79.)

Alteration

According to architectural historian Harold Kirker, portions of the Occidental Hotel fell down in 1861. He wrote: "An example of the unreliability of San Francisco [hotel] appearances is the collapse of part of the Occidental in 1861, despite its seeming solidity." (See Harold Kirker, California's Architectural Frontier, [Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, Incorporated, 1986], p. 79.)

Demolition

The Occidental Hotel was razed.

PCAD id: 4443