Claremont Club & Spa, A Fairmont Hotel is a historic

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

situated at the foot of Claremont Canyon in the

Berkeley Hills The Berkeley Hills are a range of the Pacific Coast Ranges that overlook the northeast side of the valley that encompasses San Francisco Bay. They were previously called the "Contra Costa Range/Hills" (from the original Spanish ''Sierra de l ...

and located in the Claremont district, near the intersection of Claremont Avenue and Ashby Avenue; the site straddles the city limits of Berkeley and Oakland. The border between the neighboring cities runs down the former

Key System The Key System (or Key Route) was a privately owned company that provided mass transit in the cities of Oakland, California, Oakland, Berkeley, California, Berkeley, Alameda, California, Alameda, Emeryville, California, Emeryville, Piedmont, Ca ...

E-train right of way that now serves as a pathway between the tennis courts which belong to the Berkeley Tennis Club. At its elevation of , the site provides scenic views of

San Francisco Bay San Francisco Bay is a large tidal estuary in the U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the big cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. San Francisco Bay drains water f ...

Overview

The site is a few blocks southeast of the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

's Clark Kerr Campus, generally bounded by Telegraph Road (present-day Claremont Avenue) to the north and west, Ashby/Tunnel Avenue to the south, and open space and private homes to the east; it was originally in unincorporated Alameda County, outside of any city limits. The majority of the property is in

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay ...

, including the entirety of the hotel building, the spa, the gardens and parking area. However, two small portions, one just east of the Berkeley Tennis Club and the other near the intersection of Claremont Avenue and Russell Street, are within the city limits of Berkeley, and the resort uses a mailing address in Berkeley: 41 Tunnel Road, Berkeley CA 94705. The Berkeley Tennis Club leased a portion of the grounds southwest of the hotel from 1917 to 1945. In 1945, the Club purchased this section of the grounds, and remains located at 1 Tunnel Road in Berkeley, next to the hotel. The Claremont has 279 guest rooms, a spa, 10 tennis courts, and of landscaped gardens. Romantic stories tell that it was once won in a checkers game. The hotel was nominated and deemed eligible for listing on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 2003, but was not listed due to owner objection. It is a designated Oakland City Historical Landmark. In 2022, the hotel is also a member of

Historic Hotels of America Historic Hotels of America is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation that was founded in 1989 with 32 charter members; the program accepts nominations and identifies hotels that have maintained their authenticity, sense of pla ...

, an official program of the

National Trust for Historic Preservation The National Trust for Historic Preservation is a privately funded, nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that works in the field of historic preservation in the United States. The member-supported organization was founded in 1949 ...

, and has been a member since 2016.

History

The site was developed initially by an early settler, William B. Thornburgh, who constructed a large home there in approximately 1870 which he called a "castle". After his death, it was purchased by John Ballard. On July 14, 1901, a wildfire descending from the hills burned the house to the ground. On November 10, 1905, the property was acquired by Louis Titus on behalf of the Claremont Hotel Company for approximately $37,500. The Claremont Hotel Company was a group of investors that included Mr Titus, along with John Hopkins Spring, Francis "Borax" Smith,

Frank C. Havens Frank Colton Havens (November 21, 1848 – February 9, 1918) was a real estate and water developer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Biography Havens was born into one of the founding families of Shelter Island, New York, the son of Wickham Sayre ...

, and

Duncan McDuffie Duncan McDuffie (September 24, 1877 – 1951) was a real estate developer, conservationist, and mountaineer based in Berkeley, California, United States. Developer McDuffie is best known for developing the Claremont and Northbrae neigh ...

. Smith and Havens were already involved with what came to be known as the "

", a major transit and real estate development company in the

East Bay The East Bay is the eastern region of the San Francisco Bay Area and includes cities along the eastern shores of the San Francisco Bay and San Pablo Bay. The region has grown to include inland communities in Alameda and Contra Costa counties ...

, whose commuter trains began rolling in 1903. 1915 Claremont Hotel I0025726A (cropped)

Construction of the hotel began soon after the 1905 purchase, contemporaneously with the nearby Claremont Park development of

, but halted as a result of supply and financial difficulties caused by the 1906 earthquake. The route of Telegraph Road was shifted to its modern location around 1907. Construction resumed for a time in 1910, but further difficulties impeded progress. In the meantime, a referendum in November 1909 brought the annexation of the area that included most of the hotel site into the city limits of Oakland. Erik Lindblom invested a substantial amount of money to complete the hotel in 1914 and it opened in 1915 as the Claremont Hotel, in time to accommodate travelers to the

Panama–Pacific International Exposition The Panama–Pacific International Exposition was a world's fair held in San Francisco, California, United States, from February 20 to December 4, 1915. Its stated purpose was to celebrate the completion of the Panama Canal, but it was widely s ...

across the Bay in San Francisco. It is comparable in scale and design to contemporary grand resort hotels completed in California between 1876 and 1914, including the Mission Inn (1876), Hotel del Coronado (1888), St. Francis Hotel (1904), and Fairmont Hotel (1907). Lindblom would acquire the hotel in 1918, which he held until it was sold to Claude C. Gillum and his wife in 1937. As completed, the hotel was built in the

Tudor Revival Tudor Revival architecture (also known as mock Tudor in the UK) first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the latter half of the 19th century. Based on revival of aspects that were perceived as Tudor architecture ...

style, with its exposed half-timber decorative finish. Unused properties were sold off starting in the 1920s, including the portion southeast of "The Short Cut" pedestrian path connecting Tunnel Road and Alvarado, and the southwestern area now occupied by the Berkeley Tennis Club. Under the Gillums, the Claremont Hotel building was painted white. In 1954, the Gillums sold the hotel to the Harsh Investment Corporation, which leased it to Murray Lehr; Lehr added the first tennis courts and swimming pool to the site. Harsh took over active control in 1971 and implemented more physical changes, completing the project to enclose the verandas started under the Gillums and replacing gardens with tennis courts and parking. The Claremont faced destruction in the

1991 Oakland firestorm : The Oakland firestorm of 1991 was a large suburban wildland–urban interface conflagration that occurred on the hillsides of northern Oakland, California, and southeastern Berkeley over the weekend of October 19–20, 1991, before being ...

, but firefighters and the lessening wind stopped the flames short of the hotel. It was acquired by KSL Claremont Resort, Inc. in 1998. In 2007, the Claremont was acquired by

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

. On February 1, 2011, the resort filed for bankruptcy due to losses attributed to the ongoing recession. Lenders including Paulson & Co., Winthrop Realty Trust and Capital Trust foreclosed on the property. In 2013, the owners reached a deal to sell the Claremont and three other properties to the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation. The Claremont was purchased in March 2014 by the Fairmont Hotel chain and financier Richard Blum.

Transportation

A transbay Key System railway line (eventually designated the "E" line) ran from the

Transbay Terminal The San Francisco Transbay Terminal was a transportation complex in San Francisco, California, United States, roughly in the center of the rectangle bounded north–south by Mission Street and Howard Street, and east–west by Beale Street and 2 ...

over the

San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, known locally as the Bay Bridge, is a complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California. As part of Interstate 80 and the direct road between San Francisco and Oakland, it carries about 260,000 ...

nearly to the doors of the Claremont Hotel, terminating between the tennis courts that are now part of the Berkeley Tennis Club. Thus, Claremont Hotel guests not only had views of San Francisco, but could go there directly from the lobby steps. The Key System tracks were removed in 1958 along with the rest of the Key System, but the tennis courts are still separated by a path where the tracks used to be. The Key System had constructed another large hotel near downtown Oakland, the Key Route Inn, which also had its own train service. Besides the direct rail connection, the Claremont Hotel was also convenient to vehicular traffic, as it was situated along the principal route over the Berkeley Hills via Claremont Canyon. In 1903, a small tunnel was excavated above Temescal Canyon (the next canyon southward), accessible by a new road dubbed ''Tunnel Road'', which ran from the end of Ashby Avenue. The same route later led to a newer, larger tunnel which opened in 1937 as the "Broadway Low Level Tunnel", later renamed the

Caldecott Tunnel The Caldecott Tunnel is an east–west highway tunnel through the Berkeley Hills between Oakland and Orinda, California. Its four bores carry California State Route 24. Named after Thomas E. Caldecott, former mayor of Berkeley, it opened in 19 ...

. The street address of the Claremont is still 41 Tunnel Road. Tunnel Road is a designated part of State Highway 13.

Prohibition

In 1873, a state law was enacted that prohibited the sale of alcoholic beverages within of the University of California. This statute was amended in 1876, reducing the prohibition distance to from the perimeter of the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, University of Califor ...

. In 1913, the hotel's investors sponsored AB 1620 (known as the Ferguson bill), supposedly to further restrict alcohol near churches and schools statewide, but specifically excluding the Claremont Hotel from the dry zone. Influenced by activism from women's clubs and temperance groups in Berkeley, the Ferguson bill was defeated by one vote. Nationwide prohibition of alcohol was instituted on January 17, 1920, when the Volstead Act, enacted pursuant to the 18th Amendment, went into effect. On December 5, 1933, the 18th Amendment was repealed by enactment of the 21st Amendment. After repeal, the Claremont Hotel continued to suffer from the state law prohibiting the sale of liquor within a mile of the university. In 1937, the law was amended to measure the distance following street routes rather than a straight line, and the hotel was then able to serve liquor legally. According to a story on the hotel's website, a student at the university discovered in 1936 that the route was over a mile and was awarded free drinks for life. This point had been publicly discussed in 1913, however. The hotel had an unusual fire escape in the form of a multi-story spiral slide for guests to make their escape. Many people over the years, including teenagers, sneaked in and took the ride, but the slide was eventually boarded up and removed. On the final day the slide was opened up to the public and anybody making a donation to the hotel's selected charity was given a monogrammed terrycloth hand towel to slide down with.

Reported haunting

The Claremont is reportedly haunted, particularly Room 422. Reports include the sound of a baby crying, but the story of the death of a six-year-old girl in that room has not been substantiated.

References

External links

Claremont Club and Spa, A Fairmont Hotel official website

"Claremont Hotel", Registration Form, National Register of HIstoric PLaces, Berkeley/Oakland Neighbors of the Claremont, 2003, p.40-41

History of Claremont Resort from the official website

Advertisement in the 1919 Automobile Bluebook (publ.1918)

Claremont Hotel Berkeley, The Craftsman Bungalow

{{DEFAULTSORT:Claremont Hotel and Spa Buildings and structures in Oakland, California Companies based in Oakland, California Hotels established in 1915 Hotel buildings completed in 1915 Hotels in the San Francisco Bay Area Resorts in California Tourist attractions in Oakland, California 1915 establishments in California Railway stations closed in 1958 Fairmont Hotels and Resorts Historic Hotels of America