Hospitality stretched to its utmost limits in California during the ’seventies. Anything the state produced belonged to the meanest of God’s creatures. I remember being invited to visit at a country place and, walking over the estate, hesitated to pick any of the fruit. I was laughed at.
“The fruit grows on the trees for any man to pick,” said my host.
It was literally true: but the memory of being whipped, in Concord days, for climbing a wall and picking a pear, was too recent for me to understand this point of view.
One of the most lavish entertainers, and a man to whom the city of San Francisco owes a great debt, was William Ralston. He started numberless civic enterprises, one of which was a hotel which was to make her famous the world over; and he imbued that hotel with a spirit, a hospitality, and an atmosphere which have endured to the present time. Into every detail of this hostelry he put the most loving care. After the fire of 1906, which completely demolished the inside, the walls remained as stanch and firm as they ever were and completely earthquake proof—due to their enormous thickness.
The rooms were built around a central court, very much like a patio. Horses and carriages drove right in here, depositing guests almost at the office desk. The furniture for all the rooms was made of solid mahogany which Mr. Ralston brought all the way from South America in a big white fleet sent down for the purpose. Nothing more completely Western or completely comfortable could be imagined. If you stopped at the Palace Hotel, you were certain to get the feeling that you were somebody’s personal guest and that that somebody had taken a great deal of trouble for your ease and enjoyment.
In his own home at Belmont, Mr. Ralston was an extravagant host. The immense house was always crowded with guests, and from a specially constructed gallery he looked down (like an Emperor of Rome) upon these numbers of people, each one amusing himself according to his own personal desire. But emperors fall, and there are always people jealous of a dictator, no matter how just he may be. Ralston lived for others and consequently trusted others; therefore, the blow must have been harder to bear when it fell.