Hotel Del Coronado... Turning Back The Clock

Did You Know? - Hotel del Coronado (also known as The Del and Hotel Del) is a beach front luxury hotel in the city of Coronado, just across the San Diego Bay from San Diego, California. It is one of the few surviving examples of an American architectural genre: the wooden Victorian beach resort. It is the second largest wooden structure in the United States (after the Tillamook Air Museum in Tillamook, Oregon) and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977 and a California Historical Landmark in 1970.

When it opened in 1888, it was the largest resort hotel in the world. It has hosted presidents, royalty, and celebrities through the years.

Did You Know? - Cabrillo National Monument is located at the southern tip of the Point Loma Peninsula in San Diego, California. It commemorates the landing of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo at San Diego Bay on September 28, 1542. This event marked the first time that a European expedition had set foot on what later became the West Coast of the United States. The site was designated as California Historical Landmark #56 in 1932. As with all historical units of the National Park Service, Cabrillo was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.

Point Loma is historically important as the landing place of the first European expedition to come ashore in present-day California. The peninsula has been described as "where California began". Today, Point Loma houses two major military bases, a national cemetery, a national monument, and a university, in addition to residential and commercial areas.

Loma is the Spanish word for hill. The original name of the peninsula was La Punta de la Loma de San Diego, translated as Hill Point of San Diego. This was later anglicized to Point Loma.

Did You Know? - To deal with fire hazards, a freshwater pipeline was run under San Diego Bay.

Water tanks and gravity flow sprinklers were installed. He also built two giant cisterns with concrete walls a foot thick in the basement to store rainwater. Although these cisterns were never used for rainwater, they were reputedly very handy for storing alcoholic beverages during Prohibition.

Reid also installed the world's first oil furnace in the new hotel, prompting a Los Angeles oil company to build tankers to carry the oil to Coronado.

Electric lighting in a hotel was also a world first. The electric wires were installed inside the gas lines, so if the "new-fangled" electricity didn't work, they could always pipe gas in to illuminate the rooms.

Thomas Edison inspected the final electrical installation, and returned in 1904 to oversee the world's first electrically-lighted outdoor Christmas tree, which was placed on the hotel's lawn.

Did You Know? - On December 19, 1880, three people went together to buy all of Coronado and North Island for $110,000.

Those people were E. S. Babcock, retired railroad executive from Evansville, Indiana, Hampton L. Story, of the Story and Clark Piano Company of Chicago, and Jacob Gruendike, president of the First National Bank of San Diego.

Did You Know? - Construction of the hotel began in March, 1887, "on a sandspit populated by jack rabbits and coyotes".

If the hotel were ever to be built, one of numerous problems to overcome was the absence of lumber and labor in the San Diego area. The lumber problem was solved with contracts for exclusive rights to all raw lumber production of the Dolbeer & Carson Lumber Company of Eureka, California, which was one of the West's largest.

Planing mills were built on site to finish raw lumber shipped directly from the Dolbeer & Carson lumber yards, located on the shores of Humboldt Bay.

To obtain brick and concrete, Reid built his own kilns. He also constructed a metal shop and iron works.

Did You Know? - Babcock & Story, often called B&S, was named after The Del's visionary founders, Elisha Babcock and H.L. Story, two mid-western businessmen who dreamed of building a resort hotel that would be the "talk of the Western world."

Babcock & Story Bar is designed to take advantage of the spectacular seaside setting. The original 46-foot handcrafted mahogany bar, which was brought by ship from Philadelphia around Cape Horn in 1888, is the centerpiece for the bar.

B&S Bar offers signature margaritas, blended tropical drinks, unique martinis, California premier wines, seasonal specialty coffee beverages and espressos. B&S Bar also features light fare, a sushi barand nightly musical entertainment.

B&S Bar is open daily from 11:00am until 1am and food is served from noon until 10:00pm.

Did You Know? - The original grounds had many amenities, including an Olympic-sized salt water pool, tennis courts, and a yacht club with architecture resembling the hotel's grand tower. A Japanese tea garden, an ostrich farm, billiards, bowling alleys, hunting expeditions, and deep sea fishing were some of the many features offered to its guests.

Did You Know? - By the 1920s Hollywood's stars and starlets discovered that 'the Del' was the 'in place' to stay. Many celebrities made their way south to party during the era of Prohibition and used the Hotel Del as their personal playground. Douglas Fairbanks, Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn and Mae West were a few of the many actors who stayed at the hotel during weekend getaways.

Did You Know? - Set in the historic, oceanfront Hotel del Coronado, ENO's San Diego wine bar isn't just a tasting room, it's a sensory delight. First, it's not just about the wine, this upscale-but-warm lounge throws in some of the world's most cherished culinary indulgences: cheese, chocolates and authentic Neapolitan-style pizza.

A glass-ensconced, floor-to-ceiling wine tower showcases the 2,800-bottle inventory, served up by the glass or in flights. Not to be outdone, the built-in cheese and chocolate cases contain an outstanding international collection of cheeses, as well as a rotating selection of handmade chocolates and truffles.

Meanwhile, our outdoor wood-fired oven serves up artisan classic pizzas, including Margherita, Funghi, Pepperoni and ENO specialty pies, including gluten-free pizza. So plan a happy hour with friends, grab a table for a romantic date, or take your meeting out of the boardroom. ENO's comfy, casual San Diego wine tasting room was a welcomestop.

Did You Know? - The sparking wines (at the back) which they called "fizzy elixirs" were...

PROSECCO Adami 'Garbel' Trentino-Alto Adige

BRUT ROSE Scarpetta 'Timido' Collio Orientali dei Friuli

BRUT Domaine Carneros Los Carneros

Did You Know? - These called "The Californians" were...

SAUVIGNON BLANC Cliff Lede Napa Valley

RIESLING Scribe Sonoma County

CHARDONNAY CAKEBREAD Napa Valley

Did You Know? - Seagulls can drink salt water because of glands in their heads.

If seagulls hadn't evolved to drink sea water, they would have died out or moved back to lake living long ago. Thankfully, evolution provided a special supraorbital gland that scrubs the salt from the seagull's blood and expels it as an ultra-salty liquid from the nostrils.

Given a choice, seagulls will drink fresh water over salt water because processing the salt is an energy-intensive process. But in a pinch, and when they're far out at sea, they can lower their beaks to the sea to quench their thirst.

Did You Know? - A pidgin /ˈpɪdʒɨn/, or pidgin language, is a simplified version of a language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common.

It is most commonly employed in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different from the language of the country in which they reside (but where there is no common language between the groups).

Fundamentally, a pidgin is a simplified means of linguistic communication, as it is constructed impromptu, or by convention, between individuals or groups of people. A pidgin is not the native language of any speech community, but is instead learned as a second language.

A pidgin may be built from words, sounds, or body language from multiple other languages and cultures. Pidgins allow people or a group of people to communicate with each other without having any similarities in language. Pidgins usually have low prestige with respect to other languages.