Red-tiled roofs and white wooden turrets rise around you, a Victorian fantasy that has welcomed guests since February 19, 1888. The hotel was built in less than a year by a workforce of Chinese laborers and has operated continuously for over 130 years. It was one of the first buildings in California to be fully electrified, and the electrical system was personally designed and installed by Thomas Edison, who was himself a guest at the opening.
The hotel's list of famous guests is genuinely extraordinary: fourteen US presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, and Barack Obama; Marilyn Monroe, who filmed Some Like It Hot on this beach in 1958; Charles Lindbergh, Prince Edward VIII, and L. Frank Baum, who is said to have conceived the Emerald City of Oz while staying here, inspired by the hotel's green-roofed conical towers. The Prohibition era brought a different kind of history: Coronado and the Silver Strand were major entry points for rum-running operations from Tijuana, as smugglers moving liquor north from Mexico found the Navy's attention pointed elsewhere. The hotel survived Prohibition, two world wars, the motel era, and the internet age, and it shows no signs of stopping.