The Huntington Hotel: Requiem for a Landmark

The champagne ran out before noon Sunday. Drinks were served in plastic cups because most of the glasses had been pocketed. And if you wanted to partake of the Last Brunch at the Huntington Sheraton, there was a two-hour wait.

In an atmosphere that mixed the solemnity of funeral-goers with the curiosity of gawkers at a flea market, the six-story central building of Pasadena’s Huntington Sheraton opened its doors for the last time Sunday morning.

Most who flocked to the hotel over the weekend went to relive a special part of their past; a wedding, a first kiss, a memory that indelibly melded emotion and surroundings.

One Last Look

Since the announcement last week that the 79-year-old landmark’s main building would close Sunday evening, the hotel had been deluged with mourners, souvenir hunters and the mildly curious--all attempting to get one last look at the structure that represents not just a hotel, but a way of life.

The hotel’s Japanese owner, Keikyu USA Inc., decided to close the central building because a structural survey, conducted as part of a $10-million renovation project, determined that the unreinforced concrete-and-brick walls are too weak to withstand a major earthquake.

Hundreds of people jammed the great hallways of the Huntington on Sunday, snatching up handfuls of embossed hotel matches, buying postcards and stuffing purses with stationery and cocktail napkins.

“If it’s not nailed down, it’s gone,” said guest services manager Terry Joyce as he filled a wicker basket with matches for the umpteenth time.

But even some things that were nailed down had been stolen over the weekend by those attempting to take a piece of Pasadena’s grand old lady.

On Friday, security guards discovered that one of the murals adorning the Picture Bridge had been pulled off.

“They’re getting real desperate,” security guard Ronald Morris said. Hotel management has added two extra security guard firms to help patrol the 23-acre grounds, and a guard is now on duty around the clock at the Picture Bridge, so named because of the paintings that were added above the walkway in 1933.

Painting Stolen

Despite the extra security, a painting from the lobby was also stolen over the weekend and guards who went on duty at 7 a.m. Sunday found another painting hidden in bushes outside the hotel, apparently stashed there to be picked up later.

But most of the weekend visitors went simply to remember.

“We had our wedding reception here,” said 50-year-old Gene Cooper as he waited in a long line for brunch in the Terrace Room.

Cooper and his wife, Mary, said they were stunned when they heard that the main building would be closed. “I don’t see how they can do this. You walk into other hotels and you just don’t see the same thing. It’s a way of life. It’s very elegant.”

Arthur Neff, whose parents were married in the hotel in the 1920s, said: “I’ve come here all my life just to be quiet. It seems like it’s been here hundreds of years.”

On Saturday, Denile Andrew and James Fisher became the last couple to be married in the hotel’s gazebo, part of the horseshoe gardens which will also be closed.

People came from as far away as Boston to pay their respects to Pasadena’s largest hotel, built atop a knoll surrounded by an affluent residential neighborhood.

One woman drove from Barstow last week in an unsuccessful attempt to buy the number off the door of the room where she spent her honeymoon, according to Christle Balvin, who is handling public relations for the hotel’s closure.

“I said it must have been one hell of a honeymoon,” Balvin said.

The hotel was filled Saturday night with city officials, reporters and hotel employees, as well as the nostalgic.

Range of Celebrities

Over the years, the hotel’s guests have ranged from Hollywood celebrities to European royalty to the just plain rich.

It has housed Theodore Roosevelt, Bing Crosby, Albert Einstein and Prince Philip. The 280-room hotel was one of a handful of sprawling, magnificent inns that established Pasadena as a resort mecca in the early 1900s.

Built in 1906, it opened a year later, partially unroofed, as the Hotel Wentworth. Heavy rains and financial problems that first season forced the hotel to close within months. It stood abandoned for four years. In 1911, railroad magnate Henry Huntington bought the Wentworth because he considered the empty hotel an eyesore.

After three years of remodeling, the hotel was reopened under the new owner’s name. Daniel Moore Linnard, proprietor of another luxury hotel in Pasadena, was hired to manage the Huntington.

Linnard’s business philosophy was simple: give the customers whatever it takes to make them happy. It was a philosophy that became synonymous with the Huntington.

Under Linnard, the hotel became involved with the Tournament of Roses, which used the Huntington for decades as a place to name and present the Rose Queen to the public.

Linnard bought the hotel in 1921, and brought on board his son-in-law, Stephen Wheeler Royce, who managed the Huntington for 45 years.

Royce is credited with several innovative ideas at the Huntington, including the first limousine service from Pasadena to Los Angeles International Airport.

Friday morning, John de Kramer and his wife, Ricki, took the shuttle to begin a trip to China. “We grew up here,” Ricki de Kramer said. “When we get back it will be closed.”

War Duty

After suffering through the Depression, the Huntington revived its business by housing units of the U.S. Amy during World War II and soliciting convention business.

In 1954, Sheraton Corp. bought the hotel and renamed it the Huntington-Sheraton. Royce continued to manage it until 1970. The hotel was sold to Keikyu USA Inc., a Japanese conglomerate, in 1974, but the Sheraton Corp. has continued to manage it.

Sunday night’s closure of the main building will put about 185 of the hotel’s 225 employees out of work. Another building, containing 105 rooms, and 26 stucco cottages will remain, and a new restaurant and bar will be set up.

What will become of the main building has not been decided. Pasadena has asked an internationally known seismic engineer, John Kariotis, to review the structural study done by Keikyu USA. Mayor Bill Bogaard said Sunday that “we have a strong commitment to doing everything we can to preserve this building.”

At dusk, the lights in the main building went out, floor by floor. The crowd joined the Pasadena Boys Choir in singing “Auld Lang Syne.” And at 6:10 p.m. Manager Denis McGowan proclaimed: “The hotel is officially closed.”