Formerly: New Palace Hotel (used to distinguish the 1909 replacement from the 1875 hotel)
San Francisco, California · Founded 1875 · Building: 1909
San Francisco's 1875 Palace Hotel lineage survives in a landmark replacement building opened after the 1906 disaster.
The original Palace Hotel opened in San Francisco on October 2, 1875, after its principal backer, William Chapman Ralston, died before the opening. Fire after the 1906 earthquake destroyed that building, and a replacement Palace opened on the same site on December 19, 1909. The 1909 hotel's Garden Court remains the defining historic interior.
William Sharon opens the original Palace Hotel, a project principally financed by William Chapman Ralston, who died before the opening.
Source: Historic Hotels Then and Now, "Palace Hotel (1875), San Francisco"; Palace Hotel history page
King David Kalākaua of Hawaii dies while staying at the Palace Hotel.
Source: Palace Hotel history page; contemporary San Francisco newspaper coverage cited in historical accounts
The original Palace survives the initial earthquake but is consumed in the fires that follow.
Source: San Francisco Landmark No. 18 documentation summarized by NoeHill; Palace Hotel history page
A replacement Palace Hotel opens on the original site, with the Garden Court as its signature interior.
Source: San Francisco Landmark No. 18 documentation summarized by NoeHill; Palace Hotel history page
President Warren G. Harding dies in Suite 8064 at the Palace Hotel during a western tour.
Source: Calvin Coolidge Foundation, "Essays, Papers & Addresses"; White House Historical Association
San Francisco designates the Garden Court of the Palace Hotel as Landmark No. 18.
Source: San Francisco Landmark No. 18 documentation summarized by NoeHill
The hotel closes for seismic retrofitting and restoration work; it reopens in 1991.
Source: CrawlSF, "Everything You Need to Know About The Historic Palace Hotel in San Francisco"
Every claim gets rated. A business's own website can never earn "documented."
Harding died at the Palace Hotel on August 2, 1923, after an acute illness. His death certificate attributed death to cerebral apoplexy amid other illnesses; later medical historians often favor a cardiac event. No reliable evidence establishes assassination or poisoning.
The original hotel was promoted as the world's largest and is repeatedly described as having 755 rooms. This pass did not locate a reliable contemporaneous worldwide comparison using consistent hotel-size standards, so the global superlative cannot be confirmed.
Historical accounts consistently place Caruso at the Palace during the 1906 earthquake and describe his escape. The more colorful detail that he carried a framed photograph of Pope Leo XIII was not independently confirmed in this pass.
A modern ghost-tour and online-lore tradition describes a Lady in Red or succubus-like figure at the Palace. No historical record found in this pass identifies a real person behind the figure or verifies paranormal sightings.
The original 1875 building was destroyed after the 1906 earthquake and fire, the replacement opened in 1909, and the hotel closed again from 1989 to 1991 for seismic work. The Palace has a long institutional lineage, but uninterrupted operation since 1875 is not supported.
Everything below has been reported by two or more independent sources — this is an informational record of what's said about this place, not a verified account of paranormal activity. Still Open America doesn't certify hauntings as real.
Multiple accounts describe a Lady in Red, sometimes characterized as a succubus-like figure, moving through Palace Hotel hallways and allegedly passing through the walls of rooms occupied by men traveling alone. The stories say frightened guests are found unable to move the following morning.
Reported accounts identify a man in early-1920s clothing, often said to resemble President Warren G. Harding, walking near the eighth-floor suite where Harding died in 1923. Other retellings describe him wandering the hotel corridors or looking from windows at night.
A playful unnamed presence is said to tap diners or bar patrons on the shoulder at the Pied Piper Bar, only for them to find no one behind them when they turn around.
Several retellings describe an apparition of a young French girl in old-fashioned clothing appearing in the hotel kitchen and asking staff for soup before disappearing.
An unnamed poltergeist is said to lock itself inside Palace Hotel dining rooms and then make loud noises or bang on the walls, reportedly disturbing guests and staff.
The current Palace Hotel is the same building that opened in 1875.
The original Palace Hotel opened in 1875 but was destroyed after the 1906 earthquake and fire. The present hotel is a replacement building that opened on the same site on December 19, 1909.
Source: San Francisco Landmark No. 18 documentation summarized by NoeHill; Palace Hotel history page
The Palace Hotel has operated continuously since 1875.
The Palace has an institutional lineage dating to 1875, but the original building was destroyed in 1906 and the hotel also closed from 1989 to 1991 for seismic work.
Source: San Francisco Landmark No. 18 documentation summarized by NoeHill; CrawlSF, "Everything You Need to Know About The Historic Palace Hotel in San Francisco"
The Palace stayed central to San Francisco's civic and hospitality life by rebuilding on its original site after 1906 and by repeatedly reinvesting in its historic public spaces. Its survival is a story of institutional continuity and adaptation, not uninterrupted use of the 1875 structure: the present building dates to 1909 and the hotel also closed for seismic work from 1989 to 1991.
The Palace Hotel opened in San Francisco on October 2, 1875, and its current replacement building opened on the same site on December 19, 1909. The original hotel was destroyed in the fire following the 1906 earthquake. The Palace later became the site of President Warren G. Harding's death in 1923, and its Garden Court received San Francisco Landmark No. 18 designation in 1969.
No verified evidence establishes the Palace Hotel as California's oldest hotel. The Palace's business lineage begins in 1875, but its original building was destroyed in 1906, the replacement opened in 1909, and the property closed for seismic work from 1989 to 1991. It is better described as a major historic San Francisco hotel with roots in 1875 than as a proven oldest continuously operating hotel.
The earliest source located in this review is a 2011 blog post describing the Palace Hotel's Lady in Red legend. That date documents a modern published retelling, not the first time anyone made the claim. Earlier archival documentation is still needed before assigning an origin date to the haunting story.
2 New Montgomery St, San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 512-1111
Check the hotel's current dining and reservation information before visiting the Garden Court.