For $20,000, Hotel Offers a Night to Remember

What, no water bed, sauna or bidet?

No big-screen TV?

Not even a private elevator, unless you makeuse of a special key to skip the public floors?

What do you expect for $20,000 a night?

That’s what it can cost to stay in what is believed to be the most expensive hotel suite in the country.

It’s the penthouse of the Fairmont on Nob Hill.

“I used to live here, but I got sick and tired of it,” Herman Wiener, general manager of the hotel, joked as he led a visitor through the eight-room suite, which occupies the entire eighth floor of the hotel’s main building.

True, there is no phone in the master bath. There is no spa there, either. As Jane Pavone, a hotel spokeswoman, explains it, “When they built this hotel, they had no Jacuzzis.”

Professor’s Taste for Opulence

But when they built the three-bedroom suite in 1927 they had Arthur Upham Pope, a UC Berkeley professor and expert on Persian art, whose taste for opulence still leaves observers’ mouths agape.

Pope was hired by financier John Drum to create the interiors. Drum had convinced the hotel’s owner, D.M. Linnard, to build the penthouse and let Drum lease it at $1,000 a month. Linnard had been looking for new ways to generate income from his 20-year-old hotel. He let Pope handle the construction and design.

Pope used a Persian court theme, especially in the game room, which has arched doorways and floor-to-ceiling decorative tiles.

Artist Robert Boardman Howard was commissioned to paint a map of the world on the walls of John Drum’s bedroom and the constellations of the night sky on the domed ceiling of the two-story circular library, where the United Nations Charter was drafted in 1945.

That was during the 30 years Maude Flood lived in the suite. Flood was daughter-in-law of James Flood, a saloonkeeper who became rich from the Comstock Lode with miner Jim Fair. (Fair’s daughters planned and started the Fairmont to give the Fair name a place in San Francisco society.)

Maude Flood gave up the penthouse for 11 weeks to Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius Jr., head of the U.S. delegation at the 1945 conference to form the United Nations.

Renovated Suite

Then, as the story goes, Flood was true to her word that she would not leave the penthouse except “feet first in a box.”

Benjamin H. Swig, an East Coast financier who had purchased controlling interest in the hotel in 1945, lived there next following Flood’s death in 1966.

As he had done to the rest of the hotel by 1950, Swig renovated the suite, and while stripping away the plasterboard Flood had put on the walls of the game room, which her nurse used as a bedroom, Swig rediscovered the exotic tiles and stained glass.

The game room, drawing room with grand piano, dining room that can accommodate 50, kitchen, terrace with bay and city views, four baths with 24-karat gold-plated fixtures, and other rooms with such features as mahogany doors and fireplaces inlaid with lapis lazuli, marble and woods made the penthouse a perfect place to entertain. And Swig did.

U.S Chief Justice Earl Warren and California Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown were there often, and Aaron Spelling went there when Swig invited the TV producer for a game of pool. Spelling later used the Fairmont as his model for the St. Gregory in his ABC series “Hotel.”

After Swig died, his son, Richard, opened the penthouse to hotel guests in 1981, charging grandly for the use of its burglar-proof vault, goose-feather pillows and stocked bar.

Even so, the penthouse is rented out several times a month, the hotel spokeswoman said, and the $20,000-per-night package, which includes taxes, was so successful after it was created for the holiday season in 1986, that it is still being offered, all year ‘round.

Dinner and Wines

The standard rate is $5,000 a night, plus taxes, and that includes ‘round-the-clock butler and maid and round-trip airport service by limousine.

For $20,000, you get dinner and wines for up to 20 guests, the use of three Rolls-Royce, accommodations for six in the penthouse, plus suites for 14 friends in the adjoining, 22-story (200-room, 20-suite) Fairmont Tower, completed in 1961; breakfast in bed for all and use of the hotel’s health club.

Who can afford it? Nobody will say, except that every U.S. President since John Kennedy has stayed in the penthouse, which has a secret passageway to the roof but no helipad.

The penthouse is like the rest of the Fairmont, which is unlike many luxury hotels.

The Fairmont has no tennis courts, swimming pool or gym. But, designed by Julia Morgan, the architect who designed Hearst Castle, the 340-room, 40-suite main building rose from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to entertain, as hotel literature puts it, “popes and presidents, admirals and actresses, millionaires and movie moguls.”

It is rich in history.

A SAMPLING OF THE COUNTRY’S MOST EXPENSIVE SUITES HOTEL: The Plaza, New York City PER-NIGHT PRICE: ‘Presidential Suite’ $2,800 Features: 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2 living rooms, dining room, library; only suite in 81-year-old hotel with spa; one bath also has steamroom; third-floor view of Central Park and 5th Avenue.

HOTEL: Waldorf Astoria, New York City PER-NIGHT PRICE: ‘Presidential Suite’ $3,000 Features: 3 bedrooms, 4 baths; 35th-floor view of Park Avenue; living, dining rooms; kitchen; servants quarters; putting in $500,000 in renovations; hotel built in 1893; suite situated in 42-story tower; where President Reagan has stayed many times.

HOTEL: Ritz-Carlton, Chicago PER-NIGHT PRICE: ‘The State Suite’ $2,000 Features: 2 bedrooms, 2 baths; living room, dining area, wet bar, two stories, 26th-floor lake view; bidet.

HOTEL: Hotel Maxim’s de Paris, New York City PER-NIGHT PRICE: ‘Presidential Suite’ $2,500 Features: 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, wet bar, 20th-floor view of Manhattan, penthouse.

HOTEL: Halekulani, Waikiki, Oahu, Hawaii PER-NIGHT PRICE: ‘Royal Suite’ $2,300 Features: 1 bedroom, or can add a second for a total price of $2,500 a night; living room, dining area, study, kitchen, wet bar, lanai, marble entry, view of Diamond Head.

HOTEL: Kahala Hilton, Oahu, Hawaii PER-NIGHT PRICE: ‘Presidential Suite’ $1,510 Features: 2 bedrooms, 2 parlors, 2 baths, spa, bidet, balconies, ocean view; private limousine; where King Carlos of Spain likes to stay.

HOTEL: Westin Maui, Maui, Hawaii PER-NIGHT PRICE: ‘The Presidential’ and ‘The Imperial’ $1,500, or can add a bedroom to Imperial for $1,800-$1,850 Features: ‘Presidential’ is oceanfront, 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, wet bar, lanai, 11th floor at top of tower; ‘Imperial’ is 1 bedroom, living room, dining area, entertainment room with 34-inch screen on TV, balconies, kitchen, ocean view.

HOTEL: Westin Kauai at Kauai Lagoons, Kauai, Hawaii PER-NIGHT PRICE: ‘Presidential Suite’ $1,500 Features: 1 bedroom loft-style; 2-floor penthouse, 10th- and 11th-floor ocean views; dining, living rooms; circular staircase; lanai; sauna, spa; grand piano, which Lionel Richie seems to enjoy when he stays there; remote control curtains, lights, TV from bed.

HOTEL: St. Francis, San Francisco PER-NIGHT PRICE: ‘The Windsor’ $1,200 Features: Named ‘The Windsor’ for Queen Elizabeth, who has stayed there; 2 bedrooms, each with a king-sized bed; 3 baths, one with whirlpool and bidet; dining, living rooms; wet bar; panoramic view; top of 31-floor tower.

HOTEL: L’Hermitage, Beverly Hills PER-NIGHT PRICE: Penthouse suite $1,250 Features: 3 bedrooms, 3 baths and separate shower room; gold-leaf bath fixtures; baby grand piano and a backgammon table; 3 libraries; original artwork; dining room, kitchen, balconies, wet bar, 2 stories on 7th and 8th floors.

HOTEL: Beverly Hills Hotel, Beverly Hills PER-NIGHT PRICE: Bungalow $1,175 Features: 4 bedrooms, 4 1/2 baths; spa; living, dining rooms; kitchen; a favorite place of Elizabeth Taylor; guest who stayed the longest was Howard Hughes, who lived in the bungalow for four years. He parked his car on the street nearby and never moved it while he lived in the now 76-year-old hotel but sent a servant to pay the parking tickets.

HOTEL: Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel PER-NIGHT PRICE: $2,000-$2,395 Features: 1 bedroom or 2 at higher price; living room with view of ocean; fireplace; wet bar, den, on private floor with continental breakfast, snack, tea, cocktails; baby grand piano; spa in marble bath; a dozen red roses and a bottle of champagne included.

HOTEL: Century Plaza, Century City PER-NIGHT PRICE: ‘The Plaza Suite’ $3,000 Features: A favorite of President Reagan’s; 2 bedrooms; 3 baths, all with telephones, one with spa; living, dining rooms; entertainment room with big-screen TV; $1 million in artwork; simulated fireplace; bidet; kitchen; terrace and balconies with views of mountains, ocean, city; 30th floor of tower; private access with elevator that can block off other floors.

HOTEL: Hotel Bel-Air, Bel-Air PER-NIGHT PRICE: $1,300 Features: 2 bedrooms, 2 baths; outside spa in private patio; kitchen, dining area; California Mission style decor; fireplace; French doors.

HOTEL: Beverly Hilton, Beverly Hills PER-NIGHT PRICE: ‘Imperial Suite’ $1,000-$1,100 Features: 2 bedrooms but can add third for higher price; 2 baths, living room.

HOTEL: The Biltmore, Downtown L.A. PER-NIGHT PRICE: ‘Presidential Suite’ $1,500 Features: 3 bedrooms, 4 baths; 2 stories with private elevator, which operates in a separate part of hotel from other elevators and goes directly to the suite; living, dining rooms; library; kitchen, breakfast room; 2 fireplaces; private butler; secret panels from Prohibition days to store booze or furs; hotel will be 65 years old Oct. 1. The Biltmore also has an $18,500 weekend package.

**In case you were wondering, the Beverly Wilshire will have a suite in the above category but not until its front building reopens after a massive renovation in the fall. Then the hotel will have a Presidential Suite where Walter McCarty’s apartment was when he built the hotel in 1928. The suite will have two bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, a long entry hall, living and dining rooms, a den, pantry, two fireplaces, a bidet and an 8th-floor view. The rate? $2,500, including a private butler, breakfast, high tea and Rolls-Royce transport from LAX.

Several of the other hotels listed have more than one suite that rents out for $1,000 or more a night, and to our surprise, some of the most famous hotels have no rooms at such a fee. Among these are the 100-year-old Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, where the most expensive room in the old building is $475, but that includes a billiard table, living room, wet bar, bedroom, sitting area and two baths with a fifth-floor view and tower room above. (The del Coronado also has a room at $750 a night in its newer building.)

And how about the Hotel Hana Maui? Its most expensive cottage is one called ‘Sea Ranch,’ and it goes for $646, but that includes three meals.