The Eureka Inn
The Eureka Inn, Eureka, California
It’s my practice to note the area a great hotel services; a national park, historic place, or vacation destination, but here is the rub with the Eureka Inn, there isn’t any. In no way do I mean to insult the good citizens of Eureka, California, we found the people nice enough, but I will be brutally honest, the town gives off a spooky aura.
Eureka is a port city, though the fishing area is shrinking. There are no large companies I could see. Many store fronts looked closed and street after street didn’t have a single pedestrian on them. Not everything is bad, the Old Town district has some lovely Victorian houses, but after talking to the locals, my first impression was correct. The town has been in slow economic decline for decades, which gives the place a rundown, deserted feel.
After spending the entire day at Redwood National Park, we were looking for a place to stop and recharge. Our travel plan for the next day was an 8 ½ hour drive, heading to Yosemite National Park. This started me thinking, back in the day when times were better and cars were starting to become affordable, with trains and buses dominating over air travel, this was a natural stopover, as it was for us. A place with people to see, and places to go, and things to do.
Maybe, once upon a time.
I only spent a twenty-four-hour period in Eureka, the place could have been having a bad day. And I only saw a small section of the city. My gut feelings could be completely wrong, but I don’t think so. The town felt wrong, like the gold mines ran out years ago, and it didn’t realize it was a ghost town. The place was waiting for the glory days to return, not knowing if they ever would.
The Inn takes up an entire city block, with four floors constructed in the Tudor style. The exterior lower half of the building is done in olive green singles and the upper half in the classic white stucco with timber frame look.
You enter and get the sensation of passing through a portal, you’re not in Kanas anymore, or in this case, Eureka, California. The lobby, stretching out before the front desk, could be the grand sitting room of an Elizabethan manor. In fact, if I was setting up a movie set for a period piece, this would be it. Laid out as two different sitting areas, large leather couches and arm chairs, trimmed with decoratively scrolled wood, sit on beautiful area rugs. As you step into the space your eyes are drawn up to the second-floor balcony level, with wide balusters and crystal chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling. Wide dark brown wood framing dominates the walls and ceiling, highlighted by the contrast with the antique yellow walls.
The first area, which I define as being to the right if you’re facing it, is the smaller of the two, next to two display cases with some of the hotel’s history. Large portraits of three presidents, who were all hotel guest at one time; Reagan, Harding, and Ford, look down on you. Here is where you sat to have the serious conversations, make the big deal, or finalize a grand strategy, while family and friends socialize nearby. I’m told at Christmas time, they use this area to place a decorated tree, which reaches past the second-floor balcony; think Hogwarts.
The larger area of the lobby is in front of a red brick fire place. I visualize people met here before going to the hotel’s bars or restaurants; in it’s heyday it had 2 of the former, and 3 of the latter.
According to a small pamphlet given out at the front desk, the seaside town of Eureka found itself a bit of a boom town. “Redwood forests and prime farmland were abundant, cargo ships from around the world lined the wharf of Humboldt Bay, and two daily passenger trains linked Eureka to San Francisco. With the completion of the Redwood Highway in the early 1920’s, a new influx of visitors made their way into the county to enjoy the finest hunting, fishing, and scenery California had to offer.” The town leadership decided Eureka needed an elegant place to accommodate the new traffic and hold sophisticated social functions. The chamber of commerce formed the Eureka Hotel Company and sold stock to over 600 investors. On Thursday, September 22, 1922 the hotel held, what today would be called a ‘soft opening’, for stockholders and citizens, more than 2000 people showed. The hotel opened to great fanfare, with a dinner and a community ball. The restaurants boasted serving the finest food and the Green Room provided, “a cocktail lounge for Ladies and Gentlemen.”
The hotel went through its ups and downs, and needed repairs. In 1960, a lifelong Eureka resident Helen Barnum became the majority stock holder and did a full restoration. In 2009, Libo Zhu bought the inn to keep its traditions alive and another major renovation took place to return all 104 rooms to their former glory.
The Inn is obviously a source of great home town pride, holding lifelong memories of the people who grew up in its shadow, remembering holiday parties and summer functions in their youth. The thought of razing the location of so many shared moments was obviously difficult. No one wanted the Inn to become a footnote in history, a half page obituary in a book of great bygone hotels, with pictures showing all its grandness, and ending with a blurb of when it was torn down.
Once you go above the second floor, you will find a modern hotel with all the amenities. There is a clear separation, all hotels need to stay modern, and the rooms are all tasteful and very nicely appointed, but I wish they kept some of the same feel in the rooms, I got when I first walked in.
No hotel boasts of its past history and guest list more than the Eureka Inn. Dozens and dozens of pictures, with a small plate identifying each person and their claim to fame, line the hallways.
An article appearing in The Times Standard, titled ‘An impressive quest list’, written by Kathy Dillion, starts; “Shirley Temple playing checkers in the lobby; Winston Churchill chomping on a cigar in the Rib Room; Laurel and Hardy ordering the blue plate special in the Coffee Room; John Barrymore’s profile seen against glistening barroom crystal. These are just a few of the famous folk who have taken note of and been noticed within the Eureka Inn walls.”
The list of presidents includes Gerald Ford, Herbert Hoover, and Ronald Reagan. Ultra rich such as John D Rockefeller and Cornelius Vanderbilt have checked in at the front desk. Authors Turman Capote and Zane Grey scribbled a few notes for their latest works in the lobby. There are sports figures, famous military generals, stage and movie actors; the list goes on and on.
While there, we explored the many display cases from different periods of time. There are articles applauding the numerous staff and the rigorous training they received to be sure the guests are impressed and happy. One labeled ‘Remember When’, shows pictures of the rooms, exteriors, and a very plain front desk in the 1960’s. A small tent card, crows the attributes of, The Coffee Tavern, where the daily lunch was 45 cents, dinner was 85 cents, and if you are treating yourself on a Sunday or holiday, dinner will cost you a buck. Samples of newspaper clips talk about the fine food served. Dairies provided milk in bulk, gallons of half-and-half, pounds of butter squares, and gallons of ice cream. The Humboldt scallops and bay oysters were procured fresh from the waterfront. Poultry and meats came in from local area farms. The Eureka Inn held an important economic role in the community.
We looked in on a large ballroom, which can hold a capacity of 400 people. A good-sized restaurant with booths and long tables, and the same Tudor stylings, where large square glass lights hung from the ceiling. The bar was nicely appointed as you’d expect, but also featured an area for a small band with a dance floor. All of these show an establishment who wants to be the center of attention for its guests and community, when they gather and celebrate.
There is a neat picture of people sitting in the small outside court yard. It’s one of those black and white photos, but the paper lanterns hung around the festivities have been colorized with blues, reds, and oranges. The card underneath invites you and your friends to the stockholders Halloween’s ball and dinner dance.
As I did my thing, sitting in the lobby area, taking in the surrounds, my wife playing a tune on a small piano, I think of a time in the twenties, thirties, and forties, people pulling up in old cars and crowds arriving via train. Celebrities checking in at the front desk behind me. Eureka is hoping, the place to stop on your travels across the state. The restaurant has a Christmas dinner planned, and the latest popular musical trio is playing in one of the bars, the latest swing band in another. And the hotel still gives you this first impression.
I think of all this with a little sadness, as I now present the bad with the good. When we were guests in the middle of June, the fine-looking restaurant was closed. The bar was open, but only for a short time period and didn’t serve food. This forced us to go out for our brief and disappointing reconnoiter of the town.
I checked back on the Inn’s website a couple of times and the restaurant never opened. During one of these checks on the restaurant’s status, I found a notice the bar was also now closed.
The buffet breakfast offering the next morning was fine for travelers like us; donuts, muffins, a toaster, juice and coffee, but failed in the expectations of a place like this, and it was the only onsite breakfast venue.
I think back, too many years than I want to admit, to a college economics class describing how companies fail. One example was a successful shirt company, everyone who was anyone wore their brand. This company made the best; numerous styles, pockets, no pockets, button cuffs, cuffs to be wore with cuff links, collars with buttons and those without. Colors, they offered dozens; bright, subdued, pastels, solids, and pinstripes.
Then times turn bad for a while, as they always do, and the company decides to cut down on its variety to cut costs and keep profitability high. Drop the shirts which allow cuff links, how many people use those in this day in age. It works for a while, but more pruning is needed. Let’s just drop the pockets and be done with it. And do we really need so many colors, so they drop half the colors, the ones with the most expensive dyes. And this stems the tide, profits stay in an acceptable range, but sells continue to slump. After a time, they drop the other colors as well.
By the time things get better, as they always do, the company’s only product is a plain white dress shirt and the leadership is wondering what went wrong, as its filing for bankruptcy.
The Eureka Inn reminds me of this, a great hotel and pride of the town, whose leading citizens have kept it going over the decades, but now more of a grand shell. An empty ballroom, a restaurant no longer deemed necessary, and gathering places no longer used.
I enjoyed our stay, it was fun. If you are looking to spend one night, on your way to somewhere else, stop, look around and soak in the ghosts of a grandeur time, because they don’t build places like this any longer. I just couldn’t shake the feeling in the not so distance future, we will be looking at a plain white shirt.