Chapter VII: Part 7

The hotel has been most thoroughly constructed and is practically fireproof, the outer and inner walls being of brick, with steel beams and concrete floors. There has been the most approved scientific work in drainage and plumbing, and there is an abundant supply of good water. On each floor the wide hall extends the entire length of the main building--512 feet. There are no inside rooms. Every room has the sun during some portion of the day, and a large number of suites have private baths. The house is heated by steam, in addition to which there are open fire-places in the rooms. The latest improvements have been introduced in lighting.

The other day I was in the Savannah depot of the Savannah, Florida and Western railroad waiting for the Florida special vestibuled train, when I heard a colored “depot hand” say that he wished the Tampa Bay Hotel had been built elsewhere. “Why, may I ask?” “Well,” answered my civil and sable informant, “I am tired of handlin’ de stuff for dat hotel; we’se been a doin’ it in dis yer depot for de whole year. But it’s comin’ putty near de end now, I guess. Las’ Saturday der went thro’ de depot three whole cyars filled with nutting else but cyarpets, all for dat house.” These remarks give one some faint idea of the size of the new hotel.

Mr. Plant did a great deal for Tampa when he ran his railroad down there, his lines of steamers from Tampa to Havana and Mobile have greatly helped the prosperity of the place, and now he has crowned his good work by putting up a magnificent hotel utterly regardless of the cost. If there was not already a Plant City in Florida, I should suggest to change the name of Tampa to Plant City. The house will accommodate four hundred guests; the rates are five dollars per day. It is only open during the winter, from Christmas until the first of April. But do not go to Tampa without your summer clothes.

* * * * *

All the above relates to the big new hotel at Tampa Bay, but all of it is written at the Inn, in Port Tampa, distant from Tampa Bay proper nine miles. The Inn is “little,” it accommodates only seventy-five guests, but it is a gem of a hotel. It is built on, or rather over, the water on piles, and is like an island, being actually surrounded by water. There is always a pleasant breeze on one side of the house, and a breeze is very grateful in this latitude. As I write, the mercury in a thermometer hanging outside my bedroom window marks 75 degrees; this is at 5 P.M., Saturday, January 31. We sleep with open windows, and nothing more than your pajama or a sheet is necessary for a covering.

Two sides of the dining-room are composed entirely of sliding-windows through which you can see wild ducks and fish in great quantities. I have seen wild ducks hauled in by the waiters through the open windows of this dining-room. You can throw a line into the water as you sit at dinner and if it be properly baited you will probably find a mullet at the end of the cord before you reach your _café noir_.

It goes without saying that there are good sailing and fishing at Port Tampa: Spanish mackerel and the pompano abound, the latter conceded by epicures to be one of the most exquisitely flavored fish in the world. Here also is the famous tarpon--Silver King he has been christened. In fact Port Tampa is a very paradise for sportsmen. It is easy to supply the table with oysters, fish and game in profusion. The table by the way is liberally provided, and the service by Swiss and French waiters is good.

The dining-room of the Tampa Inn reminds you of the dining-room of the Hygeia Hotel at Old Point Comfort, not for its size, but for its water surroundings, and the scene outside brings up recollections of the Surf Hotel at Fire Island. Picnic Island, across the Gulf one mile, might be a bit of Long Island. But there the similarity ends because the Inn, unlike the Surf Hotel, is a new house and is luxuriously furnished.

Steamers leave here weekly (every Tuesday) for Mobile, and tri-weekly (Monday, Thursday and Saturday), for Key West and Havana.

The railway depot conveying you to Tampa Bay (frequent daily trains), is at the door of the hotel, and from this same depot you can get a through car to Jacksonville or to New York.

The rates at the Inn are four and five dollars a day. It is proposed to keep it open all the year.

MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA.

MONTEREY, CAL., March 25, 1891.

The name Monterey means Mountain King and was bestowed on the place in 1602 by Don Sebastian Vizcaino in honor of Jaspar de Zuniga, Conte de Monte de Rey, at that time Viceroy of Mexico. It was he who suggested and projected the expedition undertaken by Vizcaino.

When the members of this expedition returned to Spain the place returned to its primitive condition and nothing was heard of it till a band of Franciscan missionaries arrived on this coast in 1768, one hundred and sixty-eight years after the first discovery. This expedition came under the direction and guidance of the president of the band, Father Junipero Serra.

At the risk of being charged with sacrilege, I will interpolate right amid this ancient history a bit of fresh news imparted to me yesterday by a carriage driver. He showed me from the road a high plateau overlooking the sea, where plainly to the naked eye were to be seen preparations for receiving a statue, which is to be in place and to be dedicated before long. It will be in honor of Father Junipero before mentioned; it will cost ten thousand dollars, and the wife of Senator Leland Stanford will foot the bill. The site for the statue is a magnificent one, and if the work of art be worthy of its position, the city of Monterey will have something it may be proud of.

There’s a “History of Monterey County” by E. S. Harrison. I didn’t know before I came here and looked into it that Monterey was the first place settled in the State of California; that the first custom house in the

State (now an old rookery) was established here; that Monterey was once not only a bustling city, but the capital of the State. It is not a wholly deserted village now, but its commercial glory, like that of Newport, R. I., which was once a greater port of entry than New York, has departed, never to return. But Monterey will always be dear to the hearts of Californians, from its historic associations and connections.

“The first European lady to come to California,” says Harrison, “was the wife of Governor Fages, who arrived in Monterey in 1783. Their child, born about 1784, was probably the first child born in California of European parents.”

Monterey is one hundred and twenty-six miles from San Francisco, and is reached in four hours by the Coast Division of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. On the way, in San Mateo county (_en passant_, what musical names all these counties and mountains have), within ten to forty miles from the starting point, Fourth and Townsend streets, you pass the rural homes of San Francisco’s millionaires. Some are set in great forests of oak surrounded by acres of flowers in perennial bloom. Next, the beautiful city of San José comes in view, and a flourishing city it appears to be from the car windows. As the train rolls along you keep in sight for many miles the dome of the Lick Observatory, which glistens in the sunlight on the summit of Mount Hamilton.

And then you haven’t eyes enough to take in and enjoy the beautiful views of ocean, river, valley and mountain as the train dashes along--the Coast Range mountains on your left, on the right the Santa Cruz mountains, with the sun setting behind them--a glorious moving panorama.

After passing what is called the most fertile valley in the State Monterey is reached, if that be your destination, but there is a more important station one mile this side of Monterey. When the conductor calls out “Hotel del Monte” very few passengers in the cars remain seated, and the train speeds on to the sleepy old town of Monterey, almost empty.

The first action which the Pacific Improvement Company took when they concluded to make of this place a summer and winter resort was to purchase some land for the purpose, so they purchased _seven thousand acres_. Part of this domain was a forest, and of this they selected for their hotel “garden” a simple matter of _one hundred and twenty-six acres_. Forty acres of this they cultivated in flower-beds, lawns, vegetables and fruit; the rest they allowed to remain as nature left it, after hiring the services of a landscape gardener to lay out within their gates a few miles for drives and paths.

Then it occurred to them that it would be well to have a grand outside drive as an additional attraction, so they made one, cutting away mountain, forest and bluff; going through the woods, four or five miles; skirting the ocean for the same distance; altogether a nice little post-prandial drive of _seventeen miles_. But this is not much--for California. The drive being private property it is used only for the guests of the Hotel del Monte, the owners of which keep it in the best order, and in summer time have it watered. It is macadamized and in as good condition as the drives in Central Park, New York.

The road winds toward the bay through a forest of oaks and pines. For two or three miles it will be cool, dark, shaded and sweet smelling, and presently you get a view of the ocean. If the wind is high, as it was on the twenty-second of March, you will see foaming white-caps in the distance, and the spray dashing wildly on the bare brown rocks in the foreground, making a picture which, on the day we saw it, was awfully grand. I don’t mean this in the sense that girls do when they

say a thing is “awfully nice;” I mean that the boisterous waves were almost frightful with their impetuous rush and their terrible roar.

To quote dear old Fitz-Greene Halleck, whose statue in Central Park few recognize:

The winds of March were humming
Their parting song, their parting song.

It was a habit of my predecessor on the _Home Journal_, General George P. Morris, to publish annually this sweet song of Halleck’s in the _Home Journal_ during the first week of March. It was a singular fancy of Morris’s and it pleased his brother poet.

But I am getting away from my story--and the surf. The seals didn’t seem to mind the roaring surf or howling wind. Their unearthly bark formed part of the grand chorus. They tossed their heads and rolled their ungainly bodies about with all the grace at their command, which is not saying much for their sylph-like movements. No; water is their element.

If you expect to see the seals of the same color as the sealskin sacques worn by women, you may not see the seals at all, for they match in color with the brownish gray rocks on which they romp. They have not gone through the process of “London dyeing.” I didn’t take the trouble to get out of the carriage and go down to the shore, so in this instance I accepted the driver’s word that there were five hundred seals on the rocks.

The cultivated grounds of the Hotel del Monte astonish you with their size and beauty and with the neatness and order in which they are kept. Probably not elsewhere is there such variety in horticulture. Everything from everywhere seems to thrive here. Nor do I know of any section of country where there are such noble oaks and pines, but probably the company claim too much when they say that “the garden is the finest, the most gorgeous, the richest and most varied in all the world.” A few years have elapsed since I examined Kensington and Kew closely, but it seems to me that the Tuileries gardens, which I saw one year ago, are richer, and I know that the gardens in Hyde Park, through which I strolled last August, are more pleasing to the eye and to the sense of smell. I speak of the floral display only; it must be remembered, however, that the Del Monte gardens are not at their best in March.

The trees are wonderful. I carry with me not only a thermometer but a tiny tape measure, the latter in my pocket. I asked the driver to stop as we were driving through the grounds, while I measured a pine and I found that it was four and a half yards in circumference near the ground. The driver told me how tall it was, but I will not quote him as I’m not giving you “California stories.” This pine was not pointed out nor did I select it for its size. There were others within a few feet of where this giant stood just as large, and for all I know there are hundreds on the ground much larger.

Of course the palm abounds, all trees of tropical growth are here; there are calla lilies for borders, violets, heliotrope, nasturtium, honeysuckle in wild profusion, and this in March, mind you. Is there ivy? “Well, rather,” as an Englishman might answer such a question. A leaf now lies on my table which measures five inches across. The grounds are in charge of a skilled landscape gardener with a force of thirty-five men--English, American and Chinese.

Foreigners from other lands may rail against the Chinese as much as they please, and our legislators may be right in excluding them lest they overrun the country, but it must be said in their favor that they are a peaceful, industrious set, and there are no better servants for indoor or outdoor work. Under certain conditions, however, they are as obstinate as mules. When you engage them you must be exceedingly careful in giving them instructions, for they will always continue to do what they are at first told to do; you cannot change their ways.

Mr. George Schönewald, manager of Hotel del Monte, while we were chatting in his office, illustrated it to me in this way: “Observe that Chinaman wiping carefully the casing of that white door. He was told when he first came here that he was to do that sort of work at this time of day, and if the heavens fall he’ll do it. If I were to ask him this minute to leave that door and polish this plate glass window he might obey, but it would upset him for the day, if not for all time. If you change your mind and want the work done in a different way you had better change your Chinaman, you can’t change their ways. But seven Chinamen will do the work of fourteen white men.”

And this brings me to the fact that nearly all the walls and all the interior woodwork of these great buildings are painted white. The lack of color becomes a little tiresome to the eye, but one thing comforts you, it is kept white--not a mark, not a spot to mar its perfection. Chinamen are always washing either doors, windows, surbase, or whatever part of the floor is not carpeted; all is pure white except the floor of the beautiful dining-room, which is of dark English oak kept highly polished.

The series of buildings is in the modern Gothic style, the main building three hundred and fifty feet front, with a central tower eighty feet high and wings or annexes two hundred and eighty feet long, showing an entire floor area of sixteen acres. An acre or two, more or less, is nothing--in California. The bed-room in which this is written is an ordinary room here, eighteen by sixteen feet. Even the marble wash-basin is worth measuring--three feet three in circumference. Running water, gas, fireplaces; and closets built with partition walls in every room. There are five hundred and ten rooms, and seven hundred people can be accommodated comfortably.

I am surprised here, as I have been elsewhere in California, at the low rates which obtain at hotels. A placard on the door of this well-furnished room, with beautiful walls and ceiling and a luxurious bed, reads: “Rate for this room, with board, for one person $3.50; for two $6.50. With bath-room $4 and $7 per day.” And in the bath-room there appears to be an inexhaustible supply of boiling water. There is no charge made in the ladies’ billiard room, which adjoins the parlor; no charge for use of boats on the twenty-acre lake.

If the plumbing is right, and so it appears to be, there is no trouble with the question of drainage, the ocean being at the door. The drinking water is brought from Carmel river, eighteen miles distant, in the mountains. A ton of ice per day is made on the premises. Some of the vegetables are raised near the hotel, and there is a dairy farm connected with the property measuring untold acres.

Native wines are sold at Hotel del Monte lower than I’ve seen them either here or abroad. It’s easy to be a “swell” at Del Monte. A half bottle of Zinfandel is opened and served at table for fifteen cents, and a very good wine it is, too, so far as pleasing my palate goes. But I don’t profess to be so well versed in wines as the late Sam Ward or the present Ward McAllister. There is a secret, however, in the low charge for California wine at Hotel del Monte--the company have their own vineyards. What haven’t they got? They have nothing less than a Steinway concert grand in the parlor and another in the ball-room.

There’s a feature that almost escaped being put down, and yet it is worthy of special mention. To the first floors in the two annexes you neither ascend nor descend any stairs; nor do you to the second floor. To the first floor you descend an inclined hall or arcade; to the second you ascend an inclined arcade. If you have a room even on the third floor you only walk up one flight of stairs, unless you prefer the elevator.

This is not a new idea, however. I remember being shown through an old, unused palace in Berlin which was constructed in the same way, A member of the royal house was weak in the knees from rheumatism and so was rolled on a sedan chair up and down in this way. The porter at this hotel, wheeling his truck “upstairs” loaded with trunks, reminded me of the rheumatic royalty.

In all hotels recently constructed there is an electric bell as well as an electric button in every room. If you leave word to be called in the morning, there’s no rapping outside your door--rapping loud enough to awaken every sleeper near your apartment. There is an electric button in the office which connects with a bell in your room, and to this call you will respond. There is no escape from it; you must get out of bed to stop the ringing.

The first Hotel del Monte, opened in 1880, was destroyed by fire: the new house was erected four years ago. The present manager, Mr. George Schönewald, opened the first house and superintended the construction of the second. As his name indicates, he is not to the manor born. He arrived in this country twenty-five years ago without a penny in his pocket, but with a determination to make a position for himself. There is no secret in his success. Anybody can gain success who will follow the Schönewald method. It was not “blind luck “ with him, but industry, unceasing industry, directed with unusual intelligence.

Schönewald fitted himself thoroughly for his position. On his arrival in this country he decided to be a practical confectioner, and not long after he received the highest salary ever paid in the State to a confectioner. Then he took to cooking and earned the highest salary ever paid to a cook in the State. Step by step has he moved from the very bottom round of the ladder to the management of one of the largest and finest hotels in the country.

Schönewald is a worker. He is supposed to take three meals a day, but sometimes his breakfast is not touched till late in the afternoon. From my window I have seen him driving about rapidly in a buggy before my toilet was completed; and your humble servant, as a general rule, is out of bed before seven A.M. The interests of the company first, his own comfort last, seems to be this manager’s motto.

Yes, your Germans are workers. Mrs. Schönewald is her husband’s helpmeet: she fills the position of housekeeper at Hotel del Monte, and that probably accounts for the bed-rooms being so comfortably furnished--a rocker here, an easy, arm-chair there, with a neat white “tidy” on the upholstered back. There’s nothing like a woman’s eye, a woman’s thoughtfulness in providing all the tasteful etceteras which make a home comfortable and complete.

I will close with a clipping from the tourist book, “To the Golden Gate,” issued by the Pennsylvania Railroad:--“The Eastern traveler coming to California’s coast and failing to see ‘Del Monte’ has indeed missed not everything, but a goodly part.”

SAN DIEGO AND CORONADO.

CORONADO BEACH, CAL., March 5, 1891.

I was induced to think about coming to Southern California by the tempting descriptions in Henry T. Finck’s book, “Scenic Tour of the Pacific Coast,” and by interesting articles in the Century Magazine. Toward San Diego and Coronado Beach my steps were turned by Charles Dudley Warner’s glowing accounts in Harper’s Magazine.

I had always accepted with a grain of salt the flattering reports so widely published, and now that I have seen for myself these wondrous things, my friends will scarcely credit my story, so enthusiastic have I become.

However, I do not intend that you shall rely on my mere “say so.” I’ve been looking up official and other authorities--men of wide reputation, who have a name to lose.

First, as to climate. This is the fifth of March; I have been here one week to-day, and every day of the seven has been about alike--dry, sunshiny, only on one or two days cloudy. On some days of the seven I have seen men bathing in the ocean, and the bathers said that the temperature was enjoyable--this in February. I am told that you can bathe in the surf the year round, but never mind what “I am told.”

And in temperature, I believe it to be the most equable climate in the world--but away with “beliefs,” I have a thermometer of my own, and the hotel has one also, but I have watched closely a government, self-recording instrument which is so placed that no ray of the sun nor no reflection can approach it, and the figures, signed by an official of the signal service in the United States army, record something like this for the current week: five A. M., 55 degrees; noon, 68 degrees; five P. M., 64 degrees. The figures quoted, to be exact, are those recorded on February 28; some days since then have been a trifle cooler.

You may suggest: “If there is almost continual sunshine during daylight, and the ground is always covered with grass and wild flowers, it must be very hot and trying in summer.”

Must it? Remember there is a bay on three sides of Coronado, and the Pacific ocean is on the other. But I will ask you to remember nothing. From the compiled records of the United States signal station here, I have “boiled down” a lot of facts and figures into this condensed form, to wit:--in ten years, from 1876 to 1885, both years inclusive, there were only one hundred and twenty days on which the mercury rose higher than 80 degrees. And the summer nights are far more pleasant than those you experience in New York.

What about the winter then? Here is the answer, gathered in the same way from the same official source. There were only ninety-three days in those same ten years upon which the mercury reached as low as 40, and on no day did it remain at 40 for more than two hours.

By comparing, as I did, the United States record of the mean temperature at Coronado for one year with a computation--made in the same year by Dr. Bennett of the mean temperature of the Mediterranean records, I find that the winter temperature of Coronado is 8 degrees _higher_ than the winter temperature of the most favored foreign winter resorts, and the summer temperature 10 degrees _lower_, thus making an average of 9 degrees in favor of Coronado as an all-year-round resort.

I haven’t the honor of Mr. Douglas Gunn’s acquaintance, but in his interesting pamphlet concerning this region he says: “With scarcely a perceptible difference between summer and winter you wear the same clothing and sleep under the same covering the year round. The average annual rainfall is about ten inches, with an average of thirty-four rainy days in the whole year. And here most of the rain falls at night; there are very few of what Eastern people would call “‘rainy days.’”

My week’s experience agrees with Mr. Gunn’s observations. He says: “Almost every morning, about two hours after sunrise, a gentle sea breeze commences, attaining its maximum velocity between one and three P.M., then decreasing, and changing to a gentle land breeze during the night. The sea breeze increasing as the sun gains its height, modifies the power of its rays, and keeps the skin just comfortably warm. The gentle land breeze at night cools off the heat absorbed during the day, and makes every night refreshing.”

I could go on and quote to the same effect from no less distinguished an authority than the scientist Agassiz, who was in this locality nineteen years ago; also from Dr. Chamberlain in the New York Medical Record, who says “it is the sanitarium of the Military Division for the Pacific,” and from one known to me personally, Dr. Titus Munson Coan, a New York littérateur of reputation, who calls this “the most charming spot on earth;” but I fear that you might make some such remark as a very young clubman did (fifty years ago) on seeing “Hamlet” for the first time. Asked for his opinion, he said: “It’s a very good play, Fred, but too d----d full of quotations.”

THE LOCATION.--Coronado Beach proper occupies about one-half of the peninsula that forms the bay of San Diego. It is situated in the extreme southwestern corner of the State, in latitude 32 degrees 42 minutes 37 seconds north, longitude 117 degrees 9 minutes west, and is four hundred and eighty miles southeast from San Francisco. The peculiar shape of this unique peninsula makes it difficult to describe. Beginning as it does, very near the boundary line of Lower California, in Mexico, it reaches away to the westward for miles, until, at a point opposite the present city of San Diego, it forms a conjunction with what seems to have been an island, which, if squared, would measure about a mile and a half on each side. On the northeast and southeast are the slopes and peaks of the Coast Range and Lower California chain of mountains; southward lies the Pacific ocean; on the west is Point Loma, which forms the western boundary of the entrance to the bay, and breaks the force of the winter winds from the Pacific.

But how do you get to the hotel? Well, Coronado is one and a half miles from San Diego, San Diego is one hundred and twenty-five miles from Los Angeles, and Los Angeles is a station of the Southern Pacific Railroad, also a station of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé road. San Diego is also reached by steamer from San Pedro and from San Francisco, eight hours from the former, two days from the latter.

The Pacific Coast Steamship Company runs a fine line of boats. I made the trip on one, the Corona, a well-appointed vessel of 1500 tons, built on the plan of the Olivette and Mascotte, which run between Tampa and Havana. The Corona makes about thirteen knots; not so swift as the Olivette; no boat of her size is as swift as the Olivette.

Some of the conditions of land and water are similar to those at Fire Island--ocean on one side, bay on the other. But while Fire Island lacks vegetation, every inch of ground here which is allowed to remain so is green, or is carpeted with flowers--literally carpeted. No; Fire Island will not quite answer for comparison. There is no use for a horse, nor is there a horse on the land or the sand of Sammis, while here there are fast trotters, lovely drives and a race course. The two places are alike, in that surf and still water bathing can both be had, as well as sailing and rowing. But there is other sport here--shooting, for instance. I saw two men go out this morning after breakfast, empty-handed (one of them was E. S. Babcock), and I saw them return this evening with a bag which they said contained “about one hundred quail.” I saw the birds counted and they numbered one hundred--lacking eight.

Is the ocean too cool for you or the surf boisterous, there is a plunge bath off shore with water heated to 80 degrees. The tank measures 40 x 60 feet, so you can flounder about like a veritable fish.

But you neither shoot, fish, swim, ride nor drive? Then there are charming and varied walks--on the edge of the rough ocean, on the edge of the smooth bay, on the high bluff at the side of the former, or through pretty country lanes and lovely gardens.

There is a charming walk of about one mile from the hotel to the ferry, and planks are laid about half the distance. You pass by or pass through pretty parks. On each “sidewalk” there is a row of young fan palms six to eight feet high, these alternate with daisy bushes six feet in circumference, the palm trees and bushes being about eight feet apart; here and there rows of young pines ten or twelve feet high.

A MAGNIFICENT VALLEY VIEW.--To my mind one of the most delightful morning or afternoon excursions hereabouts is made at an expense of forty cents, without walking a block. Steam railway from hotel to ferry, boat across the bay to San Diego, next a horse car to cable road, then five miles by cable road through a country rich with gorgeous mountain, valley and ocean views, to “The Pavilion.” The Pavilion, erected on the summit of a mountain, is an amusement building surrounded by well-kept paths and terraces from which a view is had of Mission Valley, a valley and a view not unlike that which you get from the old Catskill Mountain House and which many people prefer to that, because this view is not so extensive and can all be taken in and enjoyed at a glance, with the naked eye. You can see cattle and dogs in Mission Valley from your elevated position, and you see men ploughing and engaged in other farm labor. It is a spectacle that is worth going a hundred miles to see, and if you can afford it you would not begrudge as many dollars as it costs cents to make the trip. You are at a loss for words to describe your feelings of pleasure when the grand Mission Valley view bursts upon you. You remain silent in awe and admiration.

Are these walks and excursions not of your choice, or should the weather be inclement, there are verandas about the hotel measuring a mile or more.

Neither have interior amusement and exercise been forgotten. There is a dancing hall (to which reference will be made further on), there are bowling alleys and there are some billiard tables--as many as thirty--some for men on the lower floor, some for the other sex on the main floor, and some for both sexes on the floor above. Just think of thirty billiard tables in one house.

The tables for women are well patronized. It is remarked that women favor billiard playing in the evening and in evening dress, and it is also noticed that the figure of a beautiful woman with her shapely arm in short sleeves of lace is seen to excellent advantage when leaning over the table, the white arm forming a pleasing contrast in color to the dark green baize of the table.

CORONADO’S RAPID GROWTH.--The Coronado Beach Company was organized a few years ago with a capital of three millions of dollars. The directors are E. S. Babcock, Charles T. Hinde, John D. Spreckels, H. W. Mallett and Giles Kellogg. The president is E. S. Babcock. The company some years ago laid out that part of the peninsula known as Coronado Beach into streets and avenues; but up to January 1, 1887, not a house was built. Now the streets are lined with beautiful villa residences--some of them substantial, imposing brick buildings--handsome cottages and many business blocks. There are three or four hotels, several nurseries, lumber yards, planing mills, foundries, factories, fruit packing establishments and shipbuilding yards. There is a handsome Methodist Episcopal church; the Presbyterian, Episcopal and Catholic denominations also have places of worship. A commodious school-house has a large number of pupils and Coronado has a weekly newspaper. With the growth of young Coronado came the growth of old San Diego--in fact, the latter reflects and shares the popularity of the former. San Diego’s population, which in 1884 was twenty-four hundred, now numbers over twenty thousand. Imagine the population of a town increasing eight fold in seven years.

Neither crooked like those of London, nor narrow like those of Boston, are the streets of Coronado. Like the streets in Philadelphia and San Diego, they are named after trees: Orange avenue is one hundred and forty feet wide, Palm and Olive avenues one hundred feet wide. A boulevard one hundred and thirty feet wide extends around the entire property. What about the sewer system? Unlike Key West, in Florida, Coronado with its unequalled water facilities has taken advantage of its excellent natural position. With the bay and ocean at its doors, the sewer question was quickly and easily solved--every street is already sewered. Investors were not taking any chances when they placed their funds in Coronado’s keeping.

A GOOD PURCHASE.--The whole of what is now the flourishing city of San Diego was bought twenty years ago by a Mr. Horton for twenty-six cents an acre. He built the Horton House, and for him the Horton Block was named. San Diego’s neighbor, Coronado Beach, was bought half a dozen years ago for one hundred and eighty thousand dollars by a company which has since parted with a parcel of the land for a million or two. They kept some choice pieces for themselves. Among the parcels of land is that upon which Hotel del Coronado stands, and upon which was expended a million and a half dollars. San Diego and Coronado Beach both experienced “booms” about three years ago, when many men became suddenly rich, some of them since becoming poor. Not a few now are what is known as “real estate poor,” their money is “locked up” in land for which purchasers cannot be found at present--at least not at the price which “raged” three years ago.

Choice pieces on the main street of Coronado Beach sold as high as $500 per front foot, which is about the price of lots in certain parts of New York--say in Harlem--with this difference, that “lots” here are one hundred and sixty feet deep. Had there not been real value in the land when the bubble burst, the bottom would have dropped out entirely when “hard pan” was reached. As it is, land and lots are again finding ready purchasers, and houses are being built in goodly numbers. That there is a steady growth, a healthy increase, and a great future for San Diego and Coronado Beach is a matter of certainty.

WATER, ICE AND SANITATION.--In my travels about the world I advise my daughters to be cautious of the water in new places and to drink as little as possible; here, on the contrary, I urge them to drink freely. The water is not only pure and most agreeable to the taste, but it contains medical properties which are beneficial to the system. Of this we are assured by testimonials from leading physicians in different States; among them Dr. W. H. Mason, late professor of physiology in the University of Buffalo, N. Y., who, referring to the analysis, says: “The water may be regarded as a regular elixir of life.” Its ingredients are almost identical with the famous Bethesda waters of Wisconsin.

At all events, a company with a capital of half a million dollars has been formed that has secured possession of the springs, fourteen miles distant. It has been “piped” to Coronado Heights and Coronado Beach and the yield is now five million gallons per day, which can be easily doubled by development. The water is used as drinking water at the hotel and with carbonic gas it is bottled for shipment to all parts of the country. If widely and liberally advertised, there is a fortune in Coronado Springs. All the ice used on the premises is made from this spring water, distilled, so that it is absolutely pure, which is more than can be said of Rockland Lake or Maine ice. The machinery at the hotel has a capacity of twelve tons per day.

THE HOTEL.--The structure, which with the furniture cost one and a half millions of dollars, is built around a quadrangular court 250 × 150 feet, the court being another name for a beautiful and well-kept tropical garden. This feature reminds you of the open garden about which the United States Hotel at Saratoga is built (which house has earned the name of “the model hotel of the world”), only the Coronado garden is filled with tropical plants and trees, and beautiful flowers bloom the year round. It never looks as do the gardens in Saratoga at the end of September. There are orange trees, lemons, figs, loquats, olives, limes, pomegranates, the banana, etc.

Mention of limes calls to mind that by invitation of the courteous and intellectual gentleman in charge of the Coronado nurseries, I cut a large cluster of limes and sent it to a friend in New York as a souvenir. Such a profusion of flowers you never saw, unless you have seen Coronado. For instance, a short time ago, in this nursery, thirty thousand roses were cut in one day from less than a quarter acre of rose bushes, and the flowers were merely cut to save the bushes. Everybody in the neighborhood carried away great baskets of roses to fill bags and pillow-cases.

We were loaded with flowers, cut from the trees and bushes, in the open, as we walked through the paths of the nursery--actually “loaded,” for the ladies of the party not only carried hands and arms flowing over with flowers--but their necks and shoulders were thickly entwined with smilax. The flowers included the delicate heliotrope, the sweet honeysuckle and the sturdy camelia, and they also embraced many flowers new and strange to us, for everything seems to grow here, side by side--everything that grows in the temperate, semi-tropical and tropical zones.

The hotel is situated on the southeastern portion of a beautiful mesa (the name here for a slight elevation) which slopes gradually, in terraces, from its centre toward the Pacific ocean on one side and the bay of San Diego on the other. No one style of architecture has been followed, as the reader will see from the accompanying illustration. It partakes of the Queen Anne style, also of the classic Norman era, bringing up recollections of a grand old Norman castle: but the architect has availed himself of different schools, producing a complete and uncommonly beautiful whole. It is a striking object and the series of buildings form a noble picture against the sky line when viewed four or five miles distant--from San Diego or from the ocean.

The projectors seem to have had a fancy for the biblical number seven. The building covers seven acres; counting guest chambers, sixty parlors, large and small, the private dining rooms and other public rooms, there are in all seven hundred rooms, and there is accommodation for seven hundred boarders.

Why one side of the house is enclosed in glass I cannot understand, when you can sit out doors every day in the year and bask in the sun. This is a good arrangement for Atlantic City, but not necessary, it seems to me, for Coronado Beach.

THE DRAWING-ROOM.--This is not a cold, bare and barn-like apartment such as you find the parlors in so many American hotels. It is cozy and home-like, with an air of marked refinement. The dark walls are relieved with some choice engravings, and here and there you’ll meet with a living plant, and there is always a vase or two filled with fresh flowers, such as greet the eye and please the sense of smell (in summer time) in an English country hotel, say in the Lake district. The Coronado parlor is cheerful, and with its low ceiling and pillars of unpainted wood, calls to mind the beautiful parlor of the (Spanish) Hotel Cordova in St. Augustine. In fact Mr. Babcock tells me that some of the features of the house are reminiscent of the grand hotels in Havana, where he lived for some time.

OTHER PUBLIC ROOMS.--But beside the drawing-room there are a number of other large and beautiful apartments near by--the ladies’ billiard-room, the reception-room, writing-room, chess-room, etc.,--something like the elegant public rooms (which are not so very public) in the Hotel Victoria, London. There are a dozen or more suites of rooms with private parlor for each suite, opening on the garden.

THE DINING-ROOM.--This is unique. At first glance, especially if you are in the middle of the room, which is oval, it strikes you as rather bare, monotonous and inartistic; very practical, with room for six hundred people, but not entirely pleasing. But the longer you stay the more you admire, particularly if you are lucky enough to get a table near an end of the room, either that end which overlooks the garden or the end from which you can see the ocean, the bay and the mountains beyond. It measures 176 × 66 feet, and the ceiling is distant from the floor 33 feet. The whole immense apartment, floor, walls and ceiling, is of light colored wood--white Oregon pine and solid oak worked into panels of all sizes and shapes conceivable. The materials and light colors, or color rather, are suitable to this climate and in time you get to like them.

The breakfast room is no miniature apartment either, 47 × 56 feet, with ceiling as high as the dining-room ceiling. It is far more attractive to my eye, its floor being carpeted, and having a high dado of California redwood, which serves to relieve the lighter woods. But Americans demand size for their beauty, and they have it in the dining-room with its floor area of 10,000 feet. To quote the writer of a pamphlet, “it fills the beholder with an astounding admiration.” Better than that, to my taste, they have a skilful _chef_, and he fills your platter with most appetizing dishes--if you get a good waiter.

WHERE THEY DANCE.--In the extreme southwest corner of the building is the ball-room, with an extended view of the beach and the ocean; indeed, you cannot get away from the ocean unless you get away from Coronado. The designer of this room has also “gone in” for size. It is a circular room, no less than 60 feet high and 120 feet in diameter, giving a floor area of 11,000 square feet. Too much room for a small “dance,” but splendid for a ball or grand concert.

A feature of the ball-room is a stage for amateur theatricals, which, for size and appointments in the matter of lights, would not discredit a regular theatre.

A RICH AND ROYAL SUITE.--Taken as a whole, there are more prettily furnished bedrooms in Long’s Hotel, London, than in any other hotel I have ever seen. The tower rooms in the Oglethorpe, at Brunswick, Georgia, are large and remarkably beautiful, and the bridal suite in the Ponce de Leon is supposed to be very choice, but the Ponce de Leon “show” apartments will not compare in beauty nor in completeness of detail with the bridal suite in Hotel del Coronado. These rooms in the Coronado are not so palatial in size nor in the matter of costly frescoes as the rooms in the London Métropole, in which I found Mr. and Mrs. Augustin Daly last October, but they certainly are among the most tastefully furnished hotel bedrooms I have ever seen, and it is not surprising that the photographic views of these apartments find many purchasers.

The window has an eastern view that is extremely pleasing. To the right are seen the ocean’s rough breakers, to the left is the smooth bay of San Diego, while to the immediate front, as you lie in bed, if the curtains are parted and you are awake at 6.20 A. M., you can see the sun creeping up behind a range of great mountains, miles and miles away. The soft cloud of black smoke curling from the tall, round, red brick chimneys of the electric light engine house between you and the golden sky beyond, does not mar the picture in the least.

Across the centre of the principal room of the suite are three arches, supported by the side walls and by two wooden fluted columns, and under the arches are heavy portières of double silk, salmon pink on one side, old gold on the other. The windows are draped elaborately and beautifully--light blue silk shades, lace curtains next to the windows, with inner curtains of heavy pale blue silk, lined with silk of a rose tint. The furniture is of mahogany, upholstered with blue silk plush, the carpet is a rich moquette in delicate colors, and the toilet set is in Haviland Limoges decorated in deep blue, white and gold. The ceiling is daintily frescoed. From its centre depends a three-light electrolier; from the wall, over the bureau mirror, juts out a bracket with two electric lamps. The mantel is ornamented with two side pieces of Limoges and a bronze cathedral clock--a miniature representation of the clock in the Houses of Parliament, in Westminster. If you do not get from these notes the idea of a luxurious and tasteful apartment, the fault is not with those who furnished it, but with the pen which has failed to describe it.

SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA.

SANTA CRUZ, CAL., March 27, 1891.

In area, Santa Cruz county is one of the smallest in California, but in resources, productiveness of soil and natural attractions it might be called the largest in the State. In its equable climate is grown almost everything indigenous to the north temperate zone.

The county is in central California, eighty miles south of San Francisco; it has a coast line of forty miles, and includes, according to the United States Government survey, 280,000 acres. So rich is it that there are not more than five thousand acres of waste land in the entire county. South of this is the Pajaro Valley, the most fertile spot of California, called “the wonder of the Pacific.”

There is not much stock-raising in Santa Cruz county. The mountains, being heavily timbered, are not adapted to grazing. Nor are citrus fruits cultivated to any great extent; but the apples of Santa Cruz county are superior to any grown in the State, the quality of the wine is unsurpassed in the State, and the remarkable richness of the soil renders the cultivation of potatoes, beans, hops, sugar beets, etc., profitable to a degree unknown in less fertile sections. The vegetable products of the county form one of its most extensive industries. E. S. Harrison, a trustworthy authority in California history, calls Santa Cruz “a vegetable wonderland.”

Let me illustrate the natural advantages of this region by a comparison. While riding on the Southern Pacific railway over the Texas plains, a month ago, the travelling auditor of the company, who was on our train, surprised me by stating that the company is glad to lease its lands at four cents an acre annually. Land within a couple of miles of where this is written is leased to Chinamen for farming at fifty dollars an acre annually, and they realize from it a profit per acre of two or three hundred dollars.

The City of Santa Cruz, the principal city and county seat of the county, lies between the Pacific ocean and the northern side of Monterey bay, about eighty miles south of San Francisco. It nestles among the foot-hills of the Santa Cruz mountains, and its outskirts are bathed by the sea. The city proper has a population of six thousand five hundred, and if East Santa Cruz is included, the population is about nine thousand. The city is growing rapidly. New business houses are constantly going up, capital is coming from the East, and everywhere are evidences of a steady, healthy increase.

Santa Cruz has good railroad facilities. Two branches of the Southern Pacific run here direct. They are called the broad gauge and the narrow gauge roads. The broad gauge is an important line running through Santa Clara and Pajaro valleys, passing San José and the larger towns between San Francisco and Monterey. The narrow gauge runs from San Francisco no farther south than Santa Cruz. It is more of a local line and stops at the smaller places--places, however, of such great interest to tourists as Big Trees. The steamers of the Pacific Steamship Company plying between San Pedro (near Los Angeles), and San Francisco stop here, regularly, on their way north and south.

In writing from Hotel del Monte in Monterey, I mentioned some large oaks and pines; there are as big and still bigger trees here, or very near here, at a place appropriately named Big Trees. It is a ten minute ride on the narrow gauge road of the Southern Pacific, or an hour’s drive by carriage from Santa Cruz. You need not go to Yosemite, Calaveras or Mariposa to see giants of the forest; here they are, a grove of 320 acres, some of the trees 300 feet high and 46 feet in circumference. These figures are quoted, but I measured a few specimens myself. One about four feet from the ground was 52 feet in circumference. The interior of another, “General Fremont,” had been burned out. Four persons beside myself stood inside of it, and thirty-five more, we calculated, could have found room in comfort. This measured six feet in diameter about five feet from the ground--inside measurement--the “shell” of the tree being probably a foot thick. There are dozens and scores and groups of trees in this wonderful grove, nearly as large.

The trees are of the famous California Redwood species, the wood hard as flint and very heavy. The largest specimens are named and bear tablets, “Daniel Webster,” “General Grant,” “General Sherman,” “Ingersoll’s Cathedral,” etc. Under the shadow of the last named, the honorable gentleman held forth one day to an admiring audience. “Big Trees” is owned by a wealthy widow of San Francisco, Mrs. Walsh.

Powerful and proud as are these giants of the forest, some of them have been uprooted by nature’s convulsions and lie humbly and horizontally on the ground. I noticed that a few of these were charred. The keeper of the grounds explained that year after year fire had been tried, but the hardy giants would not yield to flame. They are so thick and hard they won’t burn as they lie. “Then why not cut them up,” I suggested. “Oh!” was the answer, “lumber is worth nothing here; it is so plentiful.”

They have done a little “cutting,” however. In exchange for a dime you will get a piece of red wood quite heavy enough for your satchel, or a piece of the bark much too clumsy for your coat pocket. The bark is three or four inches thick.