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Casa Madrona

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

William G. Barrett House
Casa Madrona is located in San Francisco Bay Area
Casa Madrona
Location within San Francisco Bay Area
Casa Madrona is located in California
Casa Madrona
Location within California
Casa Madrona is located in the United States
Casa Madrona
Location within the United States
Location156 Bulkley Avenue, Sausalito, California, US
Coordinates37°51′26″N 122°28′49″W / 37.85722°N 122.48028°W / 37.85722; -122.48028 (William G. Barrett House)
Area0.5 acres (0.20 ha)
Built1885 (1885)
Architectural styleItalianate
NRHP reference No.80004490[1]
Added to NRHPJune 17, 1980

Casa Madrona is a hotel at 156 Bulkley Avenue in Sausalito, California, United States. It includes the William G. Barrett House, an Italianate style house built in 1885 as the oldest house in Sausalito. The house, sitting on a hillside, is three stories high and has a wood-siding facade with a hip roof; its original owner, the Barrett family, occupied the house until 1902. The hotel opened in 1910 and has been repeatedly resold since then. In the 1980s, a series of cottages were constructed on the hillside. The Barrett House is on the National Register of Historic Places.[2]

Description

[edit]

Casa Madrona is located on a hillside at 156 Bulkley Avenue in Sausalito, California, United States.[2] Its original section, the William G. Barrett House, is three stories high, with a brick-and-concrete foundation and a wood-siding facade.[3] It is designed in the Italianate style.[4][3]

Below the Barrett House are a series of New England-style cottages with gables and porches, built as part of the modern-day Casa Madrona Hotel.[5][6] Following an expansion in the 1980s, Casa Madrona had 13 rooms in the Barrett House, 17 rooms in the addition, and four standalone cottages.[7] Jerry Hulse of the Los Angeles Times designed the hotel complex as "a pleasing array of gray-blue New England-style units that appear to have been picked off the storm-tossed coast of Maine and transplanted here".[8]

William G. Barrett House

[edit]

The Barrett House has two entrances, both of which have porticoes. The main entrance is from uphill, which leads to the second story of the rear (west) facade, and has a porch on either side. The secondary entrance is from the side (south) facade. There is a veranda on the first story of the front (east) facade.[3] For the most part, the facade has double-hung windows with windowsills, which are separated vertically by pilasters. The windows on the second floor, except on its front facade, are flanked by brackets, which support window hoods. A cornice runs directly above the third story, above which is a hip roof with a low pitch and broad eaves. The roof has a false gable on its front facade, and there are three chimneys protruding from it.[3]

Inside, the house spans about 6,600 square feet (610 m2)[3] and has 35 rooms.[9] The entrance hall is long and narrow, and it contains a staircase leading both up to the third story and down to the first story. Throughout the house are door frames with circular motifs at their corners, and fluting on their frames; there are also sliding privacy doors. The walls have fluted baseboards and wooden trim and wainscoting.[3] Since 2014, the house has comprised its own guestroom suite called the Alexandrite Suite.[10] This suite includes 5,000 square feet (460 m2) of guestroom area, of which 3,500 square feet (330 m2) is inside the house and 1,500 square feet (140 m2) is on a deck. The house was also renovated to include 1,700 square feet (160 m2) of event venue space.[11]

History

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The Barrett House was completed in 1885 for businessman William G. Barrett.[12][9] The Sausalito News called the site "one of the finest improved sites in Sausalito".[9] The Barretts occupied the home until 1902, after which it was used as a guest house.[13][6] The Barrett House was converted into a hotel in 1906.[14]

Hotel conversion

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In 1910, attorney John Gallagher bought the house, which became a hotel called Casa Madrona.[13] Under Gallagher's ownership, the house functioned as a hotel and allegedly a brothel. Floyd Allensby acquired the house just prior to World War II.[13][6] Casa Madrona accommodated soldiers' families during the war, then became dilapidated in the years afterward.[14] After the war, Casa Madrona was a popular meeting space for Beatniks.[15][8] By 1957, the hotel was owned by Maurice Turidi, and the Sausolito town government that the hotel's poor condition invited rats "as big as cats".[16] The Los Angeles Times wrote that the building had become "a beer hall and boardinghouse for the flower children of a seemingly lost generation".[8]

Robert Deschamps took over Casa Madrona in 1959.[14] Deschamps, via an oral contract, leased the house and surroundings from Allensby[17][18] and opened Le Vivoir Restaurant there.[19][20] Over the next 15 years, Deschamps spent $80,000 extensively renovating the house,[19] turning it into an upscale hotel that attracted guests from across California, as well as from farther-flung locales such as New York and Paris.[8] Visitors included actor Dick Van Dyke and his first wife Margie, who stayed for their second wedding anniversary in 1966; Le Vivoir, which was undergoing renovations at the time, was reopened specifically for them.[21] Jerry Hulse wrote for the Herald Statesman in 1970 that the house was "a French country inn with a Spanish accent",[22] and the Los Angeles Times wrote the next year that the hotel had a "French atmosphere".[23] At the time, the Barrett House was Sausalito's oldest surviving residence.[22][23][24] The hotel was variously cited as containing 10[24] or 12 rooms, all within the Barrett House.[23]

Mudslide damage and expansions

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The house's foundation was weakened by a mudslide following heavy rains in 1972, and part of the house was subsequently declared unstable.[17] Allensby died the next year, and Crocker National Bank took over the house from Allensby's estate,[17] Crocker initially refused to repair the mudslide damage.[17] By 1973, the house was in danger of falling down the hill,[17][25] and Sausalito's city council voted to study the possibility of condemning the property.[19][25] The owner also wanted to condemn the property, but both Deschamps and local residents opposed the move.[24] In response, local residents raised $14,000 to help fund repairs.[18] The city council ordered Crocker to fix the damage in January 1974,[26] and the bank attempted to evict him the same year.[27] Although the mudslide had not caused cracking in the structure, the exterior had deteriorated, with paint flaking off the exterior.[27]

Deschamps ultimately continued to lease the hotel until July 1976, when the bank refused to renew his lease.[18] The same year, preservationists successfully convinced the city government to designate the house as a local landmark,[18] and John Mays bought the house.[4][28] Mays subsequently proposed expanding the hotel with several structures on the slope below the house.[28][5] These plans triggered opposition from local residents.[28] The Barrett House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.[14] During the construction of the expansion, Sausalito experienced another major storm, which nearly destabilized the hotel again.[8] The Casa Madrona addition, which cost $3 million, was completed in 1982.[28] The Le Vivoir restaurant remained in operation but was called simply the Casa Madrona restaurant.[29]

By the late 1980s, The Hartford Courant described Casa Madrona as one of three bed and breakfast–style inns then operating in Sausalito,[7] but Hulse said it was no longer a bed-and-breakfast due to the expanded breadth of the hotel's operations.[30] Olympus Real Estate Corp. bought Casa Madrona in 1999, at which point the whole hotel complex had 34 rooms.[31] Vail Resorts acquired Casa Madrona in 2001 as part of its purchase of Olympus's properties.[32][33] Guy Mitchell bought the hotel in 2005 for $12 million.[34] The hotel had gone into bankruptcy by 2009, after which Prism Hotels & Resorts took over as interim manager,[35] and Mitchell was subsequently investigated for bribery.[15][34] The hotel was renovated again in 2014.[12][10] As part of this renovation, the Barrett House became a single suite with 11 rooms.[11][36] Part of the house was also renovated into an event venue space.[11] In 2019, Casa Madrona was again renovated, and a lobby, coworking space, courtyard, and fitness and wellness rooms were added.[36][37]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. November 2, 2013.
  2. 1 2 "Barrett, William G., House". American Architects and Buildings. The Athenaeum of Philadelphia. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 National Park Service 1980, p. 2.
  4. 1 2 Andrews, Peter (1983). California, a Guide to the Inns of the North Coast, Monterey, the South Coast, San Francisco, the Wine Country, the Gold Country. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. p. 127. ISBN 978-0-03-068681-8. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  5. 1 2 Hulse, Jerry (December 30, 1983). "A retreat to serenity: Casa Madrona in Sausalito". The Modesto Bee. pp. C1, C3. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  6. 1 2 3 Callaham, Harvi (June 24, 1983). "Sausalito's 'magnificent' Casa Madrona". The Press-Tribune. p. 16. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  7. 1 2 Richter, Marice (June 22, 1986). "Local Color, Character Spice Up Sausalito". Hartford Courant. p. 108. Retrieved September 30, 2026.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Hulse, Jerry (December 4, 1983). "On the Go: A Romantic Hideaway in Sausalito Sausalito: A Romantic Place". Los Angeles Times. p. H1. ISSN 0458-3035. ProQuest 153667002.
  9. 1 2 3 The Old-house Lover's Guide to Inns and Bed & Breakfast Guest Houses. S. Greene Press. 1989. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-8289-0709-5. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  10. 1 2 "Hotel Suite of the Week: Alexandrite Suite, Casa Madrona Hotel & Spa". ABC News. September 10, 2026. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  11. 1 2 3 "Casa Madrona Debuts New $10,000 a Night Suite". OurSausalito.com. April 28, 2014. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  12. 1 2 Johnson, Brad (October 26, 2014). "Quick review: Casa Madrona, Sausalito". Orange County Register. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  13. 1 2 3 National Park Service 1980, p. 3.
  14. 1 2 3 4 "National Register #80004490: Casa Madrona in Sausalito, California". NoeHill in San Francisco. September 11, 2011. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  15. 1 2 Hudson, Kris; Wei, Lingling (March 4, 2010). "Trust Not Enough for Integrity Bank". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. ProQuest 237967692.
  16. ↑ "2 Sausalito Hotels Told to Curb Rats". San Francisco Chronicle. January 4, 1957. p. 36. Retrieved September 30, 2026.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 Liberatore, Paul (December 7, 1973). "Casa Madrona Hotel Facing End". Daily Independent Journal. p. 10. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  18. 1 2 3 4 Hollis, Robert (July 6, 1976). "Sausalito works to save hotel built 91 years ago". The San Francisco Examiner. p. 34. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  19. 1 2 3 Liberatore, Paul (December 14, 1973). "Casa Madrona Is Still in Business". Daily Independent Journal. p. 3. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  20. ↑ Craft, Harry (July 28, 1961). "Dining Out and Inns". Daily Independent Journal. p. 6. Retrieved September 30, 2026.
  21. ↑ "Film Star Visits Sausalito For Second Honeymoon". Daily Independent Journal. February 18, 1966. p. 20. Retrieved September 30, 2026.
  22. 1 2 Hulse, Jerry (November 10, 1970). "...And Sausalito--'The Poor Man's Riviera'". The Herald Statesman. p. 61. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  23. 1 2 3 Lundy, Dori (April 4, 1971). "Riviera Living by the Bay". The Los Angeles Times. p. 114. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  24. 1 2 3 Hulse, Jerry (October 27, 1974). "Bohemia-by-the-Bay Same as France, Almost". The Atlanta Constitution. p. 14F. ISSN 2473-1609. ProQuest 1557747510.
  25. 1 2 "A Cliff-Hanger". San Francisco Chronicle. December 12, 1973. p. 5. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  26. ↑ "Sausalito Council Orders Slide Work". Daily Independent Journal. January 16, 1974. p. 3. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  27. 1 2 Dwan, Lois (August 4, 1974). "Roundabout". Los Angeles Times. p. H76. ISSN 0458-3035. ProQuest 157547967.
  28. 1 2 3 4 Viets, Jack (November 20, 1982). "Bucking Sausalito's Boom". San Francisco Chronicle. p. 4. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  29. ↑ Hulse, Jerry (December 25, 1988). "European elegance with a view". The Flint Journal. pp. H1, H2. Retrieved September 30, 2026.
  30. ↑ Hulse, Jerry (February 23, 1986). "B&B". The Los Angeles Times. pp. 1, 16. Retrieved September 30, 2026.
  31. ↑ Frantz, James B. (June 1999). "Q&A: Olympus eyes properties, firms for turnarounds". National Real Estate Investor. Vol. 41, no. 7. pp. 44–45. ProQuest 200382172.
  32. ↑ Binkley, Christina (October 17, 2001). "Vail Resorts to Buy Majority Stake In Rockresorts From Olympus". The Wall Street Journal. p. B.2. ISSN 0099-9660. ProQuest 398930603.
  33. ↑ Nozar, Robert A. (November 19, 2001). "Vail grows with Rockresorts purchase". Hotel and Motel Management. Vol. 216, no. 20. pp. 3, 33. ProQuest 198861232.
  34. 1 2 Brown, Robbie (May 8, 2010). "2 at Faith-Based Bank Are Indicted Over Bribes". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 30, 2026.
  35. ↑ Hudson, Kris (August 26, 2009). "Rise In Hotel Defaults Spawns New Business For Property Firms". Daily Bankruptcy Review. ProQuest 195857075.
  36. 1 2 "Casa Madrona Hotel and Spa gets wellness makeover". Well Home. January 16, 2019. Retrieved September 10, 2026.
  37. ↑ Nicklin, Mary Winston (February 20, 2019). "Casa Madrona Hotel & Spa in Sausalito Unveils Renovation". Luxury Travel Advisor. Retrieved September 30, 2026.

Sources

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Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Casa_Madrona&oldid=1377798545"