Original Miramar hotel is no longer standing
By Daily Press staff
More than 100 years ago, an Australian sailor walked into a Santa Monica watering hole and ordered a few drinks. Unable to pay his tab, the sailor gave the bartender a fig tree sapling he had brought around the world.
Today, that sapling stands 80 feet tall and spans 120 feet. It’s called the Moreton Bay Fig Tree and it’s planted at Ocean Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard, on the old property of former State Sen. John P. Jones, founder of Santa Monica.
Jones, a wealthy silver miner, arrived in Southern California in 1875 with a scheme to build a railroad and harbor to transport silver bouillon to the U.S. mint in San Francisco. He and Col. Robert Baker, his partner, bought the land between West Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean and created the town of Santa Monica.
At a cost of $40,000, Jones built a mansion he called “Miramar,” which means “view of the sea” in Spanish, atop the bluffs in downtown Santa Monica. Since it was finished in 1889, the Miramar grounds have served as a private residence, a boy’s military academy, an Army Air Corps center and, for decades, a hotel.
Today, the property is owned by a private investment fund based in Los Angeles, according to hotel officials. It was bought in 1999 for $90 million. Another $17 million has been spent upgrading it under the management of Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, which currently runs the 300-room hotel.
Officials are in discussions now with City Hall to make further changes, including possibly building a high-rise tower and opening up the property so the fig tree can be seen more easily from passersby on Ocean Avenue.
Jones, who was born in England and raised in Ohio, had a limited high school education but an appetite for knowledge. Known as a skilled orator, he served as senator for Nevada and later moved to Santa Monica. Before he died in 1912, Jones, a widower, had three girls by Georgina Sullivan Jones, his second wife.
He also donated much of his vast holdings to the City of Santa Monica, including the prime blufftop real estate now known as Palisades Park, the parkland at the northeast corner of Lincoln and Wilshire boulevards, now known as Christine Emerson Reed Park, and several area church and public school grounds.
After Jones died, the Miramar was sold to King C. Gillette, the inventor of the modern razor. Towards the end of World War I, the grounds were leased to a boy’s military academy, whose students marched down Ocean Avenue in full uniform carrying unloaded muskets and rifles.
It wasn’t until 1921 that the property was first used as a hotel. Since then, it has been run by various wealthy hoteliers — except for during World War II, when the Army Air Corps took over the Miramar and used it as a redistribution center for officers and other enlisted men returning from overseas.
But for the rest of the past 82 years, the Miramar has been a luxury hotel used by celebrities and leaders alike. Visitors to the property include everyone from Susan B. Anthony, actress Madame Modjeska and novelist Mark Twain — a family friend of the Jones’ — to Wolf Blitzer, Joni Mitchell and Chevy Chase.
In between, the hotel has served as a getaway for Greta Garbo, Cary Grant, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mr. and Mrs.
John F. Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren, aviator Charles Lindbergh and many others. It’s been a backdrop for numerous movies and television programs, including “Dallas” and “Starsky and Hutch.”
Today, none of Jones’ original property stands. The mansion was bulldozed in 1938, leaving as the oldest structure the six-story “Palisades Building,” built in the 1920s, which houses bedroom suites. But the Moreton Bay Fig Tree, given to the Jones’ by the bartender in 1889, still stands where it was planted by gardener W.H. Lee.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 2, 2004. Read the original PDF.