The Hotel del Coronado: 137 Years of History on San Diego's Most Famous Shoreline

A Victorian resort built almost entirely of wood, with no architect on staff and a completion deadline of one year — that was the gamble Elisha Babcock Jr. and H.L. Story made in 1887 when they drove stakes into a barren Coronado peninsula and decided to build the grandest hotel the Pacific Coast had ever seen. By the time the Hotel del Coronado opened on February 19, 1888, they had pulled it off. It was the largest building in the United States outside New York City to be lit entirely by electricity — the electrical system designed, local legend holds, by a young Thomas Edison himself, though accounts differ on how directly Edison was involved.

The Del, as San Diegans have always called it, is the kind of place that makes you recalibrate your sense of what this region was and what it became. Coronado today is one of the most coveted addresses in Southern California, and you cannot fully understand why without understanding the hotel that preceded almost everything else here.

How a Hunting Trip Became an American Landmark

Babcock and Story came to Coronado in 1885 as rabbit hunters. What they found instead was a peninsula of hard-packed sand, scrub, and ocean views that seemed to go on forever. Within two years they had purchased the entire 4,100-acre Coronado peninsula for $110,000, platted a town, and broken ground on a hotel that would cost over $1 million to complete — a staggering sum in the 1880s.

The construction itself was a marvel of its era. Architect James Reid, brought in from San Francisco with his brother Merritt, designed the building as work was already underway, essentially drawing plans one section at a time while carpenters framed the floors beneath them. The distinctive red turrets and white Victorian woodwork that define the Del's silhouette today were not part of some grand master plan — they evolved in real time, which may explain why the building feels so alive and slightly unpredictable even now.

The hotel opened to enormous fanfare. President Benjamin Harrison visited in 1891, making it one of the earliest presidential stays at a California resort. The guest list over the following century would read like a century of American public life — royalty, heads of state, Hollywood luminaries.

Marilyn Monroe, the Military, and a Postwar Second Life

By the mid-20th century, the Del had become something more than a luxury resort — it was a cultural stage. The most famous scene filmed on its beach is the one most San Diegans can picture without trying: Marilyn Monroe running along the sand in Billy Wilder's 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot, the hotel's white towers stacked in the background. The film cemented the Del's image as the physical embodiment of Southern California glamour.

What the film didn't show was what the hotel had been doing during the years just before — and what was happening a few miles up the bay. During World War II, the Navy's presence in San Diego transformed the entire region, and Coronado was no exception. NAS North Island, which sits at the northern tip of the Coronado peninsula and remains one of the busiest naval air stations on the West Coast today, was already a major installation. The Del itself was used as a military rest and rehabilitation facility during the war years, hosting thousands of servicemembers moving through a city that was running at full military tempo. That chapter is quieter in the hotel's official story than the celebrity visits, but it is just as real.

The postwar decades were not entirely kind to the property. By the 1960s and into the 1970s, the hotel required serious investment, and there were genuine questions about whether a Victorian-era wooden resort could survive in a market that had shifted toward modern high-rise hotels. The designation as a National Historic Landmark in 1977 changed the calculation — it formalized what locals already felt, that the Del was irreplaceable, and it opened the door to the kind of long-term stewardship the building needed.

The Restoration Era and What 137 Years Actually Means

The Hotel del Coronado has been in an ongoing cycle of restoration and reinvestment for decades, with a major effort that has extended well into the 2020s. The scale of the work — touching everything from the original Victorian woodwork in the Crown Room to the beachfront guest accommodations — reflects what it actually costs to keep a 137-year-old wooden landmark not just standing but genuinely functioning as a world-class resort.

As General Manager Harold Rapoza Jr. put it at the hotel's 130th anniversary in 2018: "The property has this tremendous allure and every guest who stays here is part of our heritage. For 130 years, we have hosted millions of 'Del memories' — from Hollywood celebrities and British royalty to generations gathering for their iconic beachfront photo with the turret."

That framing — the hotel as a living repository of collective memory rather than a static landmark — is exactly right. The Del is not a museum. It is an operating hotel on an active beach in a community that is simultaneously one of the most historically layered and most actively sought-after addresses in San Diego County.

What Remains Today

The Crown Room, the hotel's grand dining hall built without a single interior column, still operates today and still stuns first-time visitors. The original Victorian woodwork, the red-shingled turrets, the beachside cupolas — all of it is visible from the public beach that runs along the hotel's western face. The hotel's History Gallery offers a walk through the original photo archives. The Coronado Beach itself, the wide flat strand that Babcock and Story looked at and saw a fortune, remains one of the most accessible and beautiful beaches in Southern California. Ferry service from the Broadway Pier in Downtown San Diego deposits visitors within a short walk of the property — the same approach travelers have used, in various forms, since the 1880s. NAS North Island's flight operations remain visible from the beach, a daily reminder that the military history and the resort history of this peninsula have always coexisted.

Why It Still Matters Today

The Hotel del Coronado is not just a backdrop — it is the reason Coronado developed the way it did. Babcock and Story's original vision attracted investment, residents, and infrastructure to a peninsula that had essentially nothing before 1887. The town grid they platted, the ferry service they established, the identity they projected for this stretch of coastline — all of it flowed from the decision to build the hotel. When people ask what makes Coronado feel different from every other coastal community in San Diego County, the honest answer starts here, on this beach, with this building.

For anyone thinking about what it means to own property in a place with this kind of layered history, the Del is a useful lens. It demonstrates that the built environment and the community identity of Coronado are genuinely inseparable — and that some investments in place-making, made well enough, last 137 years and counting.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did the Hotel del Coronado open, and how was it built so quickly?

The Hotel del Coronado opened on February 19, 1888 — less than a year after construction began in 1887. Architects James and Merritt Reid designed sections of the building while construction was already underway, essentially drawing plans in real time as crews framed each new portion of the structure.

Was the Hotel del Coronado really used by the military during World War II?

Yes. During World War II, the hotel served as a military rest and rehabilitation facility, hosting servicemembers passing through a San Diego region that was operating at full wartime capacity. NAS North Island on the northern tip of the Coronado peninsula was already a major installation and remains one of the Navy's most active air stations today.

What is the Hotel del Coronado's landmark status, and what does it protect?

The Hotel del Coronado was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977, which recognizes its exceptional significance in American history and architecture. The designation helps protect the original Victorian structure — including the Crown Room, the red turrets, and the distinctive woodwork — from alterations that would compromise its historic character.

Source: coronadotimes.com