The Westin San Jose facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Hotel Sainte Claire
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 Location in San Jose, California
Location in California
Location in the United States
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| Location | San Jose, California |
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| Built | 1926 |
| Architect | Weeks and Day |
| Architectural style | Italian Renaissance Revival - Mediterranean Revival |
| NRHP reference No. | 80000865 |
| Added to NRHP | June 3, 1980 |
The Westin San Jose is a famous hotel in Downtown San Jose. It's inside a really old building called the Sainte Claire Hotel. This hotel is super old, built way back in 1926! It's so special that it's on the National Register of Historic Places, which means it's an important historical building. Many people think it's one of the most beautiful buildings in San Jose.
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How the Hotel Looks
The Sainte Claire Hotel was designed by a famous company called Weeks and Day. They were known for designing many theaters and hotels in California. The inside of the Sainte Claire looks a bit like another famous hotel, the Mark Hopkins Hotel in San Francisco.
Hotel Style and Details
The hotel's style is called Renaissance Revival architecture. This means it looks like buildings from the Italian Renaissance period. It also has touches of French, Spanish, and Mediterranean Revival architecture styles.
One cool thing about the hotel is its main entrance. It's at a corner where two streets meet, South Market and San Carlos Streets. The building uses light brown brick for most of its walls. The first floor is made of a different kind of stone.
The hotel has six floors. The first floor has arched openings, like big windows or doors with rounded tops. The next four floors look like a tall shaft. The top two floors have pairs of windows set in arched frames.
Inside the Hotel
The main lobby of the hotel still looks very much like it did when it was first built. It has special ceilings called coffered ceilings, which means they have sunken panels.
Some parts of the hotel have changed over time. For example, the Patio Room used to be an open area with columns. Now it's covered and combined with another room called the Empire Room. The Spartan Room, which was a small garden and fountain room, has also been updated.
The ceilings in the lobby and other main rooms were once hand-painted. Sadly, these original paintings have been covered up over the years. But many of the original wood details in the guest rooms are still there. The fancy, hand-carved wood doors leading to the shops are also still in place. Many bathrooms in the rooms even have their original fixtures!
Hotel History
The Hotel Sainte Claire was once the most important and elegant hotel in the entire South Peninsula area. It was known for having the best rooms between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Who Built It?
A well-known real estate developer named T. S. Montgomery helped pay for the hotel. He was a very important person in San Jose. He helped build many of the businesses in the downtown area. Mr. Montgomery also gave the city some land across from the hotel. This land was used to build the civic auditorium, which is still there today.
Changes Over the Years
After being fixed up in the 1990s, the hotel was known as the Hyatt Sainte Claire. In the 2000s, its name changed back to the Hotel Sainte Claire. Then, on July 9, 2015, it was renovated again and became The Westin San Jose.
