The US Grant

Ulysses S. Grant Jr., son of the general and president, bought the Horton House, the hotel Alonzo Horton had opened on Broadway in 1870 to anchor his new San Diego, tore it down and built a grander one in his father's name. Construction ran from 1905 and outran his money more than once. The US Grant opened on 15 October 1910 with a parade down Broadway, and the city's downtown has been measured from its front door ever since.

History

Harrison Albright, who had designed the Spreckels buildings in San Diego, drew the hotel in the Beaux-Arts manner, eleven storeys of white stone and terracotta. The hotel's guest books record presidents from Woodrow Wilson onward, and the hotel counts fourteen of them, with Albert Einstein and Charles Lindbergh among the other names. During Prohibition a bar ran quietly in the basement. The Grant Grill opened in 1951 and for years admitted no women before 3 pm, until a group of women lawyers took seats at lunch in 1969 and refused to leave; a plaque by the door records the day. The hotel declined with downtown in the 1970s, closed, and reopened in 1985 after a first restoration. In 2003 the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, on whose ancestral land the city stands, bought the hotel. They closed it in 2005 for a restoration costing about $56 million and reopened it in October 2006 under Starwood's Luxury Collection, where it has stayed under Marriott.

Architecture and design

Albright's façade is symmetrical and white, with a deep cornice and rows of arched windows at street level. The 2006 restoration rebuilt the lobby with chandeliers, marble floors and a coffered ceiling, restored the Crystal Ballroom with its original chandeliers and the Presidential Ballroom, and commissioned the French artist Yves Clément to paint works for the public rooms and bedrooms. A large portrait of Grant hangs in the lobby.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has 270 rooms, 47 of them suites, far fewer than the 437 it opened with, because the restoration combined rooms and enlarged the bathrooms. Suites on the upper floors look over Broadway to the bay, and the Presidential Suite occupies a corner of the top floor. Rooms carry Clément's paintings and furniture in the Beaux-Arts spirit of the building rather than period reproduction.

Dining

The Grant Grill is the hotel's restaurant and bar, in its 1951 room of leather banquettes and dark panelling, and its cocktail list is one of the longest-running in the city. The lobby lounge serves breakfast and afternoon drinks, and the Palm Court off the lobby is used for tea and receptions.

Weddings and events

The hotel has 19 event rooms. The Crystal Ballroom and the Presidential Ballroom, both with their original chandeliers, take weddings and galas, and the Palm Court and smaller salons serve ceremonies, meetings and dinners. The San Diego Convention Center lies a few blocks south along the waterfront, which keeps the ballrooms busy with association events.

Location

The US Grant stands at 326 Broadway, on the northern edge of the Gaslamp Quarter and facing Horton Plaza Park. Santa Fe Depot, with Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner and the Coaster, is ten minutes on foot towards the bay, and San Diego International Airport is about 15 minutes by car. Of the luxury hotels in San Diego it is the only one in a building of its age, and the Gaslamp's restaurants start at the corner.