El Cortez Hotel

Identification

Map

Structure in general

Usage

Facts

• Built on site of the home of Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.
• See: http://sandiegohistory.org/journal/00winter/elcortez.htm for anything and everything you ever wanted to know about the El Cortez Hotel. A complete and thorough accounting.
• Architectural style: Spanish Colonial Revival.
• Opened with 117 rooms including 32 hotel rooms.
• Opened on Thanksgiving Day, 1927.
• $23 million to convert abandoned hotel into 85 apartments.
• Situated on Cortez Hill, 175 feet above sea level.
• Added to the National Register of Historic Places (#01001458) January 17, 2002.
• Empty for 22 years (closed 1978) the El Cortez transformed from hotel to residential and re-opened fully renovated in 2000.
• Famous for the 'ahead-of-its-time' outdoor elevator with sparkling stars that took guests up to the Sky Room.
• San Diego's tallest skyscraper until the 1963-67 building boom.
• The outdoor elevator, called the "Starlight Express" because it went to the Starlight Room, cost $400,000 to build.
• Originally owned by Haroun al Handlery, who also developed the Town & Country and Handlery Hotels in Mission Valley.