The 26-story hotel, which cost $10 million to build, connected
via underground passages and elevators to Grand Central Terminal.
It boasted 1,000 bedrooms, all with private baths. Its sumptuous
appointments and amenities soon drew a wealthy and famous clientele
to its elegant rooms.
They called it the Biltmore, perhaps because it lay along
Vanderbilt Avenue or perhaps to associate it with the Vanderbilts’
world-famous, 123,000-acre estate called
The Biltmore
in North
Carolina. The new hotel certainly drew the “smart” crowd. Zelda and
F. Scott Fitzgerald honeymooned there so boisterously they were asked
to leave. And J.D. Salinger placed
Catcher in the Rye’s
Holden Caulfield
beneath its solid bronze clock to watch the girls and brood.
Less than a year after the opening, Gustav fell to his death from
the 22nd story into the Italian cloistered garden. John McEntee
Bowman became head of the organization and carried the Biltmore
name and idea throughout the nation and into Cuba.
His first hotel in California was the Los Angeles Biltmore, which
opened in 1923. At the time, it was the largest U.S. hotel west of
Chicago. And its appointments were luxurious. Giovanni Battista
Smeraldi, the world-renowned Italian painter who had created many
of the ceilings and frescoes for Grand Central Terminal in New York,
created the frescoes and murals and decorative ceilings in the Galleria
and Crystal Ballroom of the Los Angeles Biltmore.
In 1928, Smeraldi came to Santa Barbara to design the Mudejar
paintings on the ceilings and walls of the Santa Barbara County
Courthouse, most notable of which are contained in the Mural Room
and Hall of Records.
The Santa Barbara Biltmore
A
s March rolled into April and then May, existing buildings on
the former Montecito Park property were moved or demolished.
Other cottages were constructed. The landscapers preserved large
stands of old cypress, oaks, camphor, and eucalyptus trees. Paths and
lawns were laid out, exotics added, and fountains installed.
From the newly poured foundations, arose “a Santa Barbara-style
hotel;” one which was
inspired
by the elements of historic Spanish,
Landmarks
108
summer
|
fall
(top)
1930s view of the romantic turret room with its curving exterior staircase
(middle)
Today's Ty Lounge in 1928
(below)
A porter awaits guests at the
newly completed Santa Barbara Biltmore ( all photos courtesy of Santa
Barbara Historical Museum)
