Today the Palace Hotel still welcomes discerning guests from around the world with gold standard hospitality and attention to detail. The valet and bellhop await your arrival to take care of your vehicle and luggage. As you walk up the marble staircase to the lobby doors, the doorman greets you like a family member. Upon request, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne with chocolate covered strawberries will be delivered to your room after check-in. The chief concierge, Jose Lopez, bent over backwards to accommodate us during our four day stay in 2019. I have stayed at several 4 and 5 star hotels, and he was by far the most attentive and phenomenal concierge I've ever met. We were able to get a private tour of the hotel's main rooms once evening, as well as last minute tickets to see Hamilton at the Orpheum Theatre on the final night of our stay. A 2020 work conference in San Francisco with another three days reserved here was canceled due to the coronavirus. An April 2021 trip was also planned, but the hotel was still not reopened from the pandemic. We finally returned for 4 days in April 2022. To write the final chapter of my book on the hotel's history, we stayed in the Palace Suite for 5 days during Christmas 2025. This visit was also to celebrate the hotel's 150th anniversary!
Whether you want to relax with a drink in the GC Lounge, have breakfast or signature tea in the Garden Court, or just take in the history surrounding the most beautiful and historic hotel in San Francisco, the Palace Hotel is a must. It is the only hotel I will stay at while visiting the city. Right: Room card from my 2019 visit.
Below are my personal photographs of the hotel from my trips to San Francisco in 2019, 2022, and 2025. Please click on the thumbnail photograph to view the full image.
Exterior: Views from Geary, Market, and New Montgomery Streets.
Lobby, Main Hall, & Staircase:
Garden Court & GC Lounge: Includes breakfast and relaxing with wine in the evening.
Market Street View Room: I highly recommend this category of room or higher for the view. We had room #742.
The Pied Piper:
Around the Palace: Includes the French Parlor Room above the Garden Court, Pool & Gymnasium, Elevators and Hallways.
Souvenirs and Keepsakes of the Palace Hotel:
For those who may wonder what is available from the Palace Hotel today to keep as a reminder of their visit, I posted what I have saved during our time there. Each day a card with a hotel photo is left at your bedside. The back is dated and gives information about the hotel, as well as the day's weather. I have kept all four cards, some of the chocolates left during turndown service, stationary, room breakfast menu, and our key cards.
The toiletries are by Le Chemin and are very high quality. If you really enjoy the scent of these, White Barn in Bath & Body Works makes a scent that smells just like them - White Tea & Sage. The gift shop in the lobby had some items from the hotel for purchase. I was able to get an engraved crystal wine glass, reproduction key fob in the form of a keychain, and the Palace Hotel book to read on the flight home.
April - 2019
April - 2022
Exterior: Views from Geary, Market, and New Montgomery Streets.
Lobby, Main Hall, & Staircase:
Landmark 18 - The Palace Hotel's History Museum:
Curated by hotel manager Clif Clark, it was his passion project while the hotel was closed due to the Covid pandemic. He was kind enough to give us a tour and history lesson on several of the items in the display cases. It features many artifacts from the hotel's past from the original 1875 building up to the grand reopening in 1991 after the renovation.
Upon entry, the round table with postcards originally sat in the Presidential Suite and was used for poker games by several famous people. Another display case features information from the earthquake and fire of 1906. Perhaps the most interesting piece in the exhibit is an original bottle of 1906 Pommery Champagne that was said to have been saved from the hotel's wine room before the fire destroyed it. When it was found in the hotel archives, Mr. Clark initially did not believe it was from the hotel, being a 1906 release and the fire happening in April of 1906. After consulting with wine experts, he said at the time it was common practice to bottle champagne and immediately distribute it for sale - with the intention that the customer would cellar it until it was ready to drink. My concern is that - if it was made as they do today - 1906 was the harvest year. Which meant these grapes would've been harvested in the fall of 1906, bottled in 1907, and likely was used at the grand reopening in 1909.
The room also features a variety of china, chandelier pieces, menus, photographs, keys, and other memorabilia spanning over 100 years.
Garden Court & GC Lounge: Includes breakfast and relaxing with wine in the evenings. The side bar was now closed in the evenings, but we were able to get wine at Flatiron Wines and bring it in to enjoy. On our last night there, a high school prom was being held in the Ralston Room and the Garden Court was closed off to prevent students from entering. All of the guests thought it was closed to all, but we were told guests could still utilize it. We had the entire room to ourselves, which made for getting some great photographs that evening.
Several images during this trip feature original Palace Hotel items from my collection that I brought to photograph at the hotel. These include a 1927 gold service dinner plate, a 1930s Palace Hotel brochure, John Williams' 1919 key and fob, a 1930s room key and fob for Room 4045, and a pin tray commemorating the 1909 reopening which I donated to Mr. Clark for the hotel collection since I had 3 of them.
The Rose Room: This room was being set up for a wedding that evening.
The Ralston Room: This room was being set up for a high school prom the following night.
The Gold Ball Room:
The French Parlor:
Around the Palace Hotel: Includes the swimming pool, fitness center, Mezzanine, & Sunset Court.
The Pied Piper:
Souvenirs and Keepsakes of the Palace Hotel:
It was unfortunate to hear that the Palace Hotel gift shop closed permanently during the Covid pandemic, so there wasn't anything I was able to purchase this time with the PH crest on it as before.
They also changed up their soap and toiletry collection, so it is no longer Le Chemin - but now Asprey, London, Purple Water. It may be odd, but I tend to associate smells the most to places - especially hotels. Le Chemin will always be the fragrance of the Palace for me; you can still faintly smell it as you walk through the main corridors on the first floor. Asprey was the brand used when we stayed at the Ritz-Carlton, Washington D.C., so that is where I associate it with.
The staff still do daily room service and nightly turn-down service. Your slippers are placed out on a towel, a hotel information card is given with information for the day, and bottles of water, glasses, and chocolates are left on your bed. It is always the small things that make this hotel phenomenal!
Our Room: Junior Suite #380. I decided to upgrade our room this time to a Junior Suite. We settled into room #380 on the third floor. It was a very roomy space with a large walk-in closet. I still love the Toto seat in the bathroom, there's nothing like it! The room didn't have any sort of view, it looked out onto the building next door on Annie Street, but it was fine. Since I wrote to the hotel prior to our trip informing them of my website, upon our arrival, one of the staff brought up a cart with a charcuterie tray, chocolate covered strawberries, and a bottle of Chandon sparking wine along with a personal welcome note from the hotel manager. It was a very nice surprise!
Garden Court: Saturday Afternoon Veuve Clicquot Tea Service.
Garden Court & GC Lounge: Noticing the finer details.
Palace Hotel Christmas Ornaments, 2001. Purchased after our 2022 visit.
December - 2025
The 150th Anniversary of the
Palace Hotel!
By 2023, my collection had grown to such a degree that I found myself compelled to write an authoritative history of the Palace Hotel, a book that would surpass any previously written or that ever will be. I envisioned a complete, chronological account of the Palace, from its conception to the present day.
After months of research, I first added nine new sections to my website to house my findings, cataloging events from 1873 to the present. These pages document everything from deaths to extravagant banquets to curious footnotes that colored the hotel’s past. Then came the painstaking task of shaping it all into a comprehensive timeline, distilling the most significant moments.
Around this time I realized that 2025 marked the 150th anniversary of the Palace Hotel. What better conclusion to my book than to visit the Palace for such a milestone? Rather than arriving for the October anniversary, we decided to celebrate Christmas 2025 at the Palace - a fitting finale to years of research.
December 23, 2025. After spending a relaxing three days in San Diego, our driver pulled up to the entrance of the Palace Hotel at approximately 1:30 in the afternoon. A sense of giddiness welled up inside me as the doorman drew back the ornate lobby doors, and we were immediately enveloped by a dazzling display of holiday decorations accompanied by Christmas music. This was no ordinary visit to the Palace, but rather the culmination of two years of focused research and six years of dedicated collecting, all leading to the writing of my final chapter commemorating the hotel’s 150th anniversary. Portions of the exterior were shrouded in tarps and scaffolding, a necessary undertaking to address areas of stonework that had weakened with time. Even so, the Palace remained as beautiful as ever.
Exterior: Views from Geary, Market, and New Montgomery Streets.
Lobby & Main Corridor:
Our Room: The Palace Suite, Room #538.
If was ever a trip on which to splurge, this was it. We chose to book one of the Palace Suites, Room #538, overlooking Market and New Montgomery Streets on the 5th floor. Originally, we were booked into Room #288, a slightly larger Palace Suite once called the Bridal Suite. However, it was on the corner of Annie and Market Streets - the side of the building covered in scaffolding and tarps. Not wanting blocked views, I opted to wait for one on the New Montgomery Street side. At nearly 900 square feet, the suite featured a gracious living room complete with a fireplace and original 1909 crystal chandelier, a large bedroom anchored by a four-post bed, and a master bathroom with a soaking tub and expansive shower. Throughout, timeless elegance was seamlessly balanced with sleek modernity. The Toto Washlet remains one of my favorite luxury touches in these rooms. We later learned from staff that this was the same suite once occupied by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who reportedly ordered oatmeal each morning and worked at the glass table during her stay. Additional surprises awaited us on the side counter: a new king-size decorative blanket bearing the PH logo (a purchase my husband arranged in advance), chocolates from Christopher Elbow, macarons, a bottle of Veuve Clicquot, and a personalized welcome card and note. I was also pleased to see that the toiletries had reverted to Le Chemin since our last visit, though the familiar small take-home bottles had been replaced with larger, refillable versions intended to remain in the room.
I also brought along a few of my artifacts to photograph in the suite, as well as the Garden Court. They include my 1875 Gorham water pitcher, 1875 room key, 1879 Christmas Day menu, pre-1906 luggage tag, 1930s room key, 1906 butter pat, and my butter pat & cocktail fork recovered from the Palace rubble in 1906.
Garden Court & GC Lounge: These photos showcase the stunning ambiance and holiday decorations that only the Palace Hotel could pull off. These are just some of the photos I took during our stay and they are all in the following order: The general set-up for the Garden Court throughout the various meals and evenings (7), enjoying fine wine and taking photos in the evenings (6), our morning breakfasts (3), Christmas Day breakfast (6), Christmas Day Grand Dinner (17), and the Holiday Tea Service (5). Menus saved or photographed from these meals can be seen under the Menus page.
Christmas Eve Dinner at the Pied Piper:
Back of House Tour: Perhaps the highlight of my visit was the opportunity to meet with Angie Clifton, the General Manager, and Jason Paradis, the Hotel Manager - both of whom have been instrumental in supporting the publication of my book. On the 24th, Jason generously gave me a private “back of house” tour of the Palace, allowing me to continue my research into the hotel’s history while also capturing new photographs for both the book and website.
Our tour began on the hotel’s little-known ninth floor, a shortened level recessed from the outer walls and invisible from street level. This floor houses the administrative offices as well as the hotel’s archive room. From there, we first stepped out onto the roof, where I was able to photograph the Palace sign up close in its new LED lighting, the two-story structure believed to be the former KSFO radio station (1938–1942), and sweeping aerial views of the hotel’s lower sections.
Next, I was granted access to the Palace’s archive room. Tucked away in a small, unassuming space were cabinets and boxes filled with photographs, menus, newspapers, and a small number of artifacts from the hotel’s past. Among the most remarkable was the original glass fragment recovered from the rubble following the 1906 earthquake and fire. I spent well over an hour examining the extensive collection of memorabilia preserved here, much of which also supplies the displays found in Landmark 18.
We then made our way through the kitchen and descended into the labyrinthine basement levels, where thousands of pieces of china, silver, and kitchen items are stored. I was particularly surprised by the quantity of china remaining from the Sheraton Palace era, as I had long assumed that most of it was sold off in 1989. In reality, much of this china remains in active use; in fact, several patterns had been pulled from storage just that week for Christmas service. I was able to photograph a number of previously undocumented patterns, which were discussed in the Sheraton Palace section of the artifact page.
Deep within the basement, Rudy, the Head Kitchen Steward, removed a key from his pocket and unlocked a large wire cage approximately 20 by 15 feet in size. To say my jaw dropped would be an understatement. Spread across carts and shelves were thousands of pieces of Palace Hotel Gold Service from 1927, carefully stacked and wrapped in plastic. Nearby shelves held original 1909 Gorham silver serving pieces, while Gold Service glassware was stored in industrial dishwashing racks stacked nearly eight feet high. I remarked that the former manager, Clifton Clark, had once told me that very little of this service remained. Rudy simply smiled and explained that, for a full hotel service operation, this was not considered a large quantity. While it would be rare, Rudy said there are still very special occasions that this china would be used, all needing to be washed and cleaned by hand. Much of this portion of the tour now feels like a blur, as I attempted to absorb as much information as possible and examine pieces I had never seen before within a very limited window of time. I could've taken countless more photos.
After several hours, my tour had come to an end, as Jason had other responsibilities to attend to on Christmas Eve. The experience was unforgettable, significantly expanding my understanding of the Palace’s operational history while also answering several lingering questions. All photos copyright Eddie Petruskevich.
*During this visit, I photographed the lobby, main corridor, and Garden Court extensively. Owing to the numerous holiday events and weddings taking place, several spaces - including the Gold Ballroom, Rose Room, Ralston Room, and French Parlor - were in various stages of setup or breakdown, making them unsuitable for updated photography. The Pied Piper proved particularly challenging to photograph due to the constant flow of guests, as it remained one of the most popular dining venues throughout our stay.
Souvenirs and Keepsakes of the Palace Hotel: As always, I strive to bring home with me as much as I can in the way of souvenirs, not only to remember the trip, but to have as a keepsake in the collection and here on the website. From empty wine bottles and caviar tins, to stationery and toiletries, and the many items graciously gifted to me by the hotel during our stay. All of the souvenir menus I have are presented under the Menu page.
