Hotel Californian, San Francisco
historic place
The Hotel Californian, located at 403 Taylor Street in San Francisco, was designed by architect Edward E. Young and built in 1923. Initially an upscale apartment hotel, it featured a Renaissance Revival exterior and a Spanish Colonial Revival lobby. A four-story addition by Alfred Henry Jacobs in 1929 introduced Art Deco elements to the facade. In 1935, Lizzie Glide purchased the hotel. She transformed it into San Francisco's only temperance hotel, where no alcohol was served, a practice that continued until 1978. Glide used funds from her late husband's oil property to support the Glide Foundation's mission work. The building has undergone name changes, becoming the Serrano Hotel and, after a 2018 renovation, the Spero Hotel. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998 and is a contributing property to the Uptown Tenderloin Historic District since 2009. The Hotel Californian stands as a historic place in San Francisco, reflecting architectural evolution and a period of social reform.