The owners are Duane and Kelly Roberts. The latter serves as vice chairman and chief operating officer.
History
The property began as an adobe boarding house called Glenwood Cottage, built by engineer/surveyor Christopher Columbus Miller and on November 22, 1876, the Millers took their first paying guest. In February 1880, Miller's son Frank Augustus Miller purchased the hotel and land from his father. It became a full-service hotel in the early 1900s due to California's economic citrus boom and warm weather, attracting wealthy travelers and investors from the East Coast and Europe.[4] In 1902, Frank changed the name to the "Glenwood Mission Inn" and started building, in a variety of styles, until he died in 1935.
Mission Spanish Revival style interiorSkybridge between buildings
During the 30-year construction period, Miller traveled the world, collecting treasures to bring back to the hotel for display.
The St. Francis Chapel houses eight, stained-glass windows created by Louis Comfort Tiffany in 1906. The windows were salvaged from the Madison Square Presbyterian Church and the chapel was purpose-built to house them. The Mexican-Baroque styled "Rayas Altar" is 25 feet tall by 16 feet across, carved from cedar and completely covered in gold leaf. For his "Garden of Bells," Miller collected over 800 bells, including one dating from the year 1247 described as the "oldest bell in Christendom."
In 1932, Frank Miller opened the St. Francis Atrio. The "Famous Fliers' Wall", added by Miller's son-in-law DeWitt Hutchings, was used to recognize notable aviators, including Amelia Earhart. On March 20, 1942, World War I ace Eddie Rickenbacker was honored at the inn, becoming the fifty-seventh flier added to the monument. Today, 151 fliers or groups of fliers are honored by having their signatures etched onto 10-inch-wide (250mm) copper wings attached to the wall.
Frank Miller died in 1935 and the inn continued under the management of his daughter and son-in-law, Allis and DeWitt Hutchings, who died in 1956.[5] The inn then went through a series of ownership changes and some of its older rooms were converted to apartments and used as dorms for UC Riverside. In the early 1960s, St. John's College considered buying it as a location for its western campus but abandoned negotiations when John Gaw Meem donated land in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Photographed in 1978
In 1992, Duane Roberts rescued the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa from the brink of demolition, restoring many of the property's architectural Spanish Mission-style features and undertaking modernization of the hotel's facilities. His wife, Kelly, manages the hotel. Annual events include the Festival of Lights, Feste dell’Amore and the Pumpkin Stroll.[6]
Architecture
Mission Inn courtyard during Festival of LightsClock overlooking the Spanish Wing.
With its widely varying styles, the Mission Inn was designed by multiple architects.[7] Frank Miller selected Arthur Burnett Benton to design the original building. Miller chose Myron Hunt to design the Spanish Wing added to the rear of the main building. He later hired G. Stanley Wilson to design the St. Francis Chapel. Wilson also added a rotunda featuring circular staircases and a dome.
The inn continues to be a getaway for notable individuals to this day. Arnold Schwarzenegger has stayed there during his tenure as governor of California and the Osbournes have paid a visit in the past few years.[citation needed]
During the inn's "Festival of Lights" celebration in November 2022, a fire broke out on the roof following the fireworks display.[10][11]
The hotel, which occupies an entire city block, has four restaurants, a day spa, and 239 guest rooms (nine rooms designated as presidential suites). It is a National Historic Landmark, a California Historical Landmark, and Riverside City Landmark #1.[12] The hotel's aesthetic charm makes it a frequent subject for local artists.
Dining
The hotel features four restaurants, two lounges, and a tequila bar.
In 1909 Carrie Jacobs-Bond wrote the lyrics for her famous song "A Perfect Day" while staying in the Mission Inn.[13] For many years the Mission Inn's carillon played "A Perfect Day" as the last tune each evening.[14] In 2016, the Mission Inn announced the return of daily performances of "A Perfect Day" as part of its commitment to preserve the history of the hotel.
American author Anne Rice so enjoyed the inn she incorporated it into her 2009 book Angel Time. The book is the first in Rice's Songs of the Seraphim series, which tells the story of Toby O'Dare, an assassin with a tragic past, who uses the Mission Inn as his refuge. Similarly, American author John Van Vlear featured the inn in his 2012 novel Treachery at Torrey Pines: A Shank MacDuff Mystery. Van Vlear relays a memorable lunch at the inn during which the golf-caddy hero picks the brain of his retired father who used to work in the banking industry as a security analyst.
The Mission Inn was featured in a Traveltalks short subject by James A. Fitzpatrick in the 1944 episode "Along the Cactus Trail".
In 1982, Eddie Money filmed the music video of "Think I'm in Love" at the inn.
The Sliders season 3 episodes 16 and 17 ("Exodus", parts I and II) were shot extensively in the Mission Inn, which played as a military base.
The finale of the 1973-74 TV series The Magician season 1 episode "Man on Fire" was shot extensively in the Mission Inn, which was supposedly "under renovation".Tears for Fears also filmed the video for the album Raoul and the Kings of Spain with the same name in the late 90's at the end. Roland Orzabal also had pictures for the album taken there as well.
The Mission Inn was also a set location in The Hunters season 2 (evidenced in episode 3).
Mission Inn Museum
The Mission Inn Museum promotes the cultural heritage of the Mission Inn. It is operated by the Mission Inn Foundation, an independent nonprofit organization. A permanent exhibition features the history of the inn as well as inland Southern California history. The main gallery hosts changing exhibitions which rotate 2-3 times per year. The museum offers educational programs and daily guided tours. Specialty tours on the Women of the Mission Inn, the hotel's fine art collection, photography tours, and architecture tours are offered on a quarterly basis. The Hands On History Outreach Program is an educational workshop series that provides opportunities for middle school students to connect with their local heritage through oral history interviews, photography, technology, and public speaking. Youth Ambassadors is a high school docent program which encourages civic engagement, leadership, and confidence in youth ages 15–18. The daily guided tours are the museum's most popular attraction, hosting over 20,000 guests per year.[15]
Mount Rubidoux – a city park in Riverside developed from land donated by the Miller family
Related Research Articles
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The Pueblo Revival style or Santa Fe style is a regional architectural style of the Southwestern United States, which draws its inspiration from Santa Fe de Nuevo México's traditional Pueblo architecture, the Spanish missions, and Territorial Style. The style developed at the beginning of the 20th century and reached its greatest popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, though it is still commonly used for new buildings. Pueblo style architecture is most prevalent in the state of New Mexico; it is often blended with Territorial Revival architecture.
Lester Sherwood Moore (1871–1924) was an American architect.
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Riverside, California, was founded in 1870, and named for its location beside the Santa Ana River. It became the county seat when Riverside County, California, was established in 1893.
Kelly J. Roberts is an American businesswoman and philanthropist in Southern California.
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The Museum of Riverside is a museum of regional history and culture, Indigenous culture, and natural history located in the historic Mission Inn District of Riverside, California, United States. The museum, formerly known as the Riverside Metropolitan Museum and Riverside Municipal Museum, is a department of the City of Riverside, but is supported by the Riverside Museum Associates (RMA) and the Harada House Foundation (HHF), two independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. Its mission is: "As a center for learning, the Museum of Riverside interacts with the community to collect, preserve, explore, and interpret the cultural and natural history of Riverside and its region."
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The Mission Revival style was part of an architectural movement, beginning in the late 19th century, for the revival and reinterpretation of American colonial styles. Mission Revival drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century Spanish missions in California. It is sometimes termed California Mission Revival, particularly when used elsewhere, such as in New Mexico and Texas which have their own unique regional architectural styles. In Australia, the style is known as Spanish Mission.
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Mission Inn can refer to:
Arthur Burnett Benton was an American architect. Benton promoted Mission Revival architecture.
Historic Hotels of America is a program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation that was founded in 1989 with 32 charter members; the program accepts nominations and identifies hotels in the United States that have maintained their authenticity, sense of place, and architectural integrity.
↑ The place of composition is indicated in a line inserted above the title on p. 3 of the high voice (soprano) edition published in 1938 by the Boston Music Company; this version is in the key of C. Jacobs-Bond added the tune for "A Perfect Day" during a visit to the Mojave Desert 3 months after her visit to the Mission Inn (Rick Reublein on "America's first great woman popular song composer" site).
Gale, Zona. Frank Miller of the Mission Inn. D. Appleton-Century Co., New York. 1938. OCLC2181944
Hall, Joan H. Through the Doors of the Mission Inn. Highgrove Press, Riverside, California. 1996. ISBN0-9631618-2-2. OCLC34655850
Hall, Joan H. Through the Doors of the Mission Inn; Volume Two. Highgrove Press, Riverside, California. 2000. ISBN0-9631618-3-0. OCLC45279767
Hodgen, Maurice. Master of the Mission Inn: Frank Miller, a Life. North Charleston, SC, Ashburton Publishing, c2013. ISBN9780976278511OCLC876931972
Hutchings, DeWitt . Handbook of the Mission Inn, Riverside, California. Frank A. Miller. 1951. OCLC14473934, 20347083
Also see: Hutchings, DeWitt V. and Borton, Francis. Handbook of the Glenwood Mission Inn. 1929. OCLC19755317
Klotz, Esther. The Mission Inn: Its History and Artifacts. Rubidoux Printing, Riverside, California. 1981. OCLC9255879
Moore, Barbara (editor). Historic Mission Inn. Friends of the Mission Inn, Riverside, California. 1998. ISBN0-9666914-0-7. OCLC40414169
Parks, Walter P. The Famous Fliers' Wall of the Mission Inn. Infinity Press, Orange, California. 2004. Library of Congress Number 86-90693. OCLC15998708
Mission Inn. The Bells and Crosses of the Mission Inn, Riverside, California. (between 1927 and 1938). OCLC40809070
An earlier version is available as Bells and crosses of the Mission Inn and the Ford Paintings of the California Missions [1908?]. OCLC276859296 (available as a digitized version, and which includes a reference to the paintings of the California Missions done by Henry Chapman Ford)
External links
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