As 2020 began, Clifton Clark, general manager of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, had to be feeling on top of the world. It was the start of a new Roaring Twenties for one of San Francisco’s most famous classic hotels. Business was booming. “The year 2019 was the biggest year in the 146-year history of this hotel,” he said.
More good times were ahead. The Palace had scheduled a huge event to be held entirely in the hotel in March — a $6 million self-contained convention, also a record. But then a pandemic struck. Everything shut down. The convention was off.
Like a lot of big hotels, the Palace stayed open, but occupancy was low — only 5% of the rooms were occupied. Two weeks later, the word came from corporate headquarters. “We had to close,” Clark said. “It was April 1, April Fool’s Day, but it was no joke.”
It was only the third time in history that the Palace had to close. The first was in April 1906, when the huge hotel was burned to the ground in the fire that followed the great earthquake. The second time was in 1988 when the Palace was closed for three years for a $170 million renovation. But the COVID closure was a bit different. “There was no lock on the front door,” Clark said. They had to close off the New Montgomery Street entrance with plywood screened by large plants.
Though some big San Francisco hotels stayed open with reduced service — notably the Marriott Marquis, the St. Francis and the Mark Hopkins — others, including the Hilton, the Palace and the Sir Francis Drake, shut down. Travel was nearly dead.
The Hilton — the city’s largest — reopened Monday and the Palace on Thursday. It seemed like a good sign. The city is back.
I always thought the classic older hotels made a city different; they made a city a city: the Waldorf, the Algonquin, the Ritz, the Biltmore, places like that. In San Francisco, I put the Palace, the St. Francis, the Fairmont and maybe the Mark Hopkins on that list. A Hilton is always a Hilton, but these are special.
So I was delighted when general manager Clark offered a look inside the Palace just before it reopened. It was like going backstage before the play. The place had everything but actors and an audience.
It must have been eerie during the 14 months the hotel was closed, maybe a bit like the empty mountain resort hotel in “The Shining” but without the ghosts. A skeleton staff remained, but “It was so quiet and lonely without people,” Clark said. He began bringing back staff this month, and immediately the place came back to life “It was great to hear conversations and laughter,” he said.
There is not much good to be said for an empty hotel — unless it is a chance to do maintenance projects. Among other things, Clark said, the hotel put in new entertainment systems in every room, with high-tech controls. The whole place got a thorough cleaning, even to polishing and painting the gilt trim in the public rooms and the main promenade corridor.
We strolled the halls, looked in at the elegant Garden Court, which is reopening for limited service. Clark says full service, even afternoon tea, will be restored as conditions permit, probably by summer.
We stopped by the Pied Piper bar, the drink glasses all polished and gleaming, the famous Maxfield Parrish mural “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” 6 feet high by 16 feet long. The mural comes with a story: Parrish painted himself as the Piper, followed by his wife, two sons and his mistress. A few years ago, hotel management tried to remove the painting on grounds it was too valuable for a barroom, but a huge public outcry changed its mind.
The hotel is full of stories. The first and best story began when banker William Ralston and William Sharon, who made millions in Nevada silver mines, opened the Palace Hotel on what had been a sand lot in 1875. It was said to be the largest hotel in the world, an amazing achievement for a place that had been nothing but a tent city only 25 years earlier.
The first guest to sign the register was Leland Stanford, and the Palace set the standard for elegance for years. Nineteen presidents of the United States stayed there. The first was Ulysses S. Grant, and the most recent was Barack Obama. Two of the hotel’s most famous guests died there: President Warren G. Harding in 1923, and David Kalakaua, the last king of Hawaii, in 1891.
As Clark walked along, he pointed out small memorials: one to Chef Philip Roemer (he invented green goddess dressing), one to celebrated bartender William Boothby (he wrote the book on bartending).
But the Palace is more than salad dressing, classy bars and famous guests. It is part of the fabric of the city.
In 1964, it was the scene of a major civil rights demonstration when protesters sat in the lobby to demand San Francisco hotels hire more people of color. The police moved in, and 167 people were arrested. The hotels agreed to change their hiring policies.
The Palace sit-in was a landmark, the beginning of years of protests that spread around the Bay Area. They picked the Palace Hotel because it was a symbol of San Francisco. “It made a huge difference,” said Terence Hallinan, who was arrested. He later became San Francisco’s district attorney.
So the Palace has endured earthquake, fires, good times and bad and now the virus. Clark is optimistic. The big $6 million convention that was canceled in March 2020 has rescheduled for 2023. The hotel is offering a Legacy Package with a room, parking, tea and Champagne. Bookings are promising.
“No hotel is like this one,” Clark said. “We are one of a kind.”
Carl Nolte’s columns run on Sunday. Email: cnolte@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Carlnoltesf
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