Midway to Main Street | Behind the Grand Floridian: The Hotel del Coronado @MidwaytoMainStreet | Uploaded July 2018 | Updated October 2024, 1 day ago.
This is the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa at Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida. Today we’re going to talk about one of the more prominent and famous sources of inspiration for the Grand Floridian, and that is the Hotel del Coronado, otherwise affectionately known as the Del, located just outside of San Diego, in California.
New here? Be sure to subscribe!
🔷goo.gl/x17zTL
My Patreon!
❤patreon.com/RobPlays
My Disney History Book List!
📚robplays.com/books
My Disney Podcast!
🎧ttapodcast.com
Follow me on Twitter!
📱Twitter.com/RobPlays
An additional thanks to my Patrons!
Alexander Folk 🏆 Allison Ganzhorn 🏆 Andres Gutierrez 🏆 Braden Foster 🏆 Brent T Gleason 🏆 Christine Mahin 🏆 Deborah Malcolm 🏆 Don Duncan 🏆 Heath Farrell 🏆 Jesse Taylor 🏆 John Gundlach 🏆 John Shoemaker 🏆 Joshua Sheha 🏆 Juan Sepulveda 🏆 Kevin Hitchcock 🏆 Mallory Craig 🏆 Marc DiFilippo 🏆 Marcus Beard 🏆 Martin Lohr 🏆 Matthew Hyndman 🏆 Meghan Franklin 🏆 Michael Gorzkowski 🏆 Nathan Peschke 🏆 Rafael Gorrochotegui 🏆 Ross Kratter 🏆 Samantha Silverstein 🏆 Scott Robertson 🏆 Shawndelle Young 🏆 Thomas 🏆 Tracy Funk 🏆 Troy Krupinski 🏆 Tyler Abbott 🏆 Victoria Luu 🏆Michael Ford 🏆
It was 1884 when Elisha Babcock Jr, a telephone company executive and Hampton Story, founder of a piano company, arrived in San Diego. The two initially didn’t know each other, but during a quail hunting trip on a peninsula off the coast they both realized that the area would make for a fantastic resort destination. So for the grand total of one-hundred and ten thousand dollars, the two purchased the forty-one hundred acre plot of land with the dream of transforming the area into a southern California paradise that would be home to the grandest hotel in the country, if not the world. With the idea that it would be the “king of the west” when it came to resorts, they named the area Coronado, which was spanish for “the crowned one”.
A couple of years later in 1886 they would split up the land into lots, saving a large piece of the beachfront for their hotel, and auctioned off the rest. They attracted over 300 buyers who ultimately paid around one-hundred thousand dollars in total for their lots. By the following year that total would exceed one and a half million dollars and by the time all the lots were sold it would bring in a grand total of two point two-five million dollars. The idea was that the revenue brought in from the sale of these lots would pay for construction of the hotel itself.
Using part of that money they hired the Reid Brothers of Indiana to design this hotel paradise. It was an all-wooden hotel that utilized what was called Queen Anne Revival architecture. With the hotel designed and ready, the construction team broke ground in March of 1887 and over the following 11 months a team of over two hundred and fifty workers raised what would become the largest hotel in the world. There was so much lumber on site that smoking around the hotel while it was being built was reportedly banned, out of fear of what might happen if a fire were to break out. When it finally opened in February of 1888 it sported four hundred guest rooms and was widely considered, beyond being the largest hotel in the world, to be one of the most technologically advanced as well. Because you see the Del offered a new blossoming modern marvel that had only really begun to commercially spread over the previous few years: electricity. But that’s not all! The hotel also offered telephone service, which had only just reached that part of California seven years earlier. It’s final price tag? Just around one million dollars. At opening rooms went for around two dollars and fifty cents a night which included with it three meals.
This is the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa at Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida. Today we’re going to talk about one of the more prominent and famous sources of inspiration for the Grand Floridian, and that is the Hotel del Coronado, otherwise affectionately known as the Del, located just outside of San Diego, in California.
New here? Be sure to subscribe!
🔷goo.gl/x17zTL
My Patreon!
❤patreon.com/RobPlays
My Disney History Book List!
📚robplays.com/books
My Disney Podcast!
🎧ttapodcast.com
Follow me on Twitter!
📱Twitter.com/RobPlays
An additional thanks to my Patrons!
Alexander Folk 🏆 Allison Ganzhorn 🏆 Andres Gutierrez 🏆 Braden Foster 🏆 Brent T Gleason 🏆 Christine Mahin 🏆 Deborah Malcolm 🏆 Don Duncan 🏆 Heath Farrell 🏆 Jesse Taylor 🏆 John Gundlach 🏆 John Shoemaker 🏆 Joshua Sheha 🏆 Juan Sepulveda 🏆 Kevin Hitchcock 🏆 Mallory Craig 🏆 Marc DiFilippo 🏆 Marcus Beard 🏆 Martin Lohr 🏆 Matthew Hyndman 🏆 Meghan Franklin 🏆 Michael Gorzkowski 🏆 Nathan Peschke 🏆 Rafael Gorrochotegui 🏆 Ross Kratter 🏆 Samantha Silverstein 🏆 Scott Robertson 🏆 Shawndelle Young 🏆 Thomas 🏆 Tracy Funk 🏆 Troy Krupinski 🏆 Tyler Abbott 🏆 Victoria Luu 🏆Michael Ford 🏆
It was 1884 when Elisha Babcock Jr, a telephone company executive and Hampton Story, founder of a piano company, arrived in San Diego. The two initially didn’t know each other, but during a quail hunting trip on a peninsula off the coast they both realized that the area would make for a fantastic resort destination. So for the grand total of one-hundred and ten thousand dollars, the two purchased the forty-one hundred acre plot of land with the dream of transforming the area into a southern California paradise that would be home to the grandest hotel in the country, if not the world. With the idea that it would be the “king of the west” when it came to resorts, they named the area Coronado, which was spanish for “the crowned one”.
A couple of years later in 1886 they would split up the land into lots, saving a large piece of the beachfront for their hotel, and auctioned off the rest. They attracted over 300 buyers who ultimately paid around one-hundred thousand dollars in total for their lots. By the following year that total would exceed one and a half million dollars and by the time all the lots were sold it would bring in a grand total of two point two-five million dollars. The idea was that the revenue brought in from the sale of these lots would pay for construction of the hotel itself.
Using part of that money they hired the Reid Brothers of Indiana to design this hotel paradise. It was an all-wooden hotel that utilized what was called Queen Anne Revival architecture. With the hotel designed and ready, the construction team broke ground in March of 1887 and over the following 11 months a team of over two hundred and fifty workers raised what would become the largest hotel in the world. There was so much lumber on site that smoking around the hotel while it was being built was reportedly banned, out of fear of what might happen if a fire were to break out. When it finally opened in February of 1888 it sported four hundred guest rooms and was widely considered, beyond being the largest hotel in the world, to be one of the most technologically advanced as well. Because you see the Del offered a new blossoming modern marvel that had only really begun to commercially spread over the previous few years: electricity. But that’s not all! The hotel also offered telephone service, which had only just reached that part of California seven years earlier. It’s final price tag? Just around one million dollars. At opening rooms went for around two dollars and fifty cents a night which included with it three meals.
