Spreckels Mansion
John D. Spreckels first visited San Diego in 1887 on his yacht to stock up on supplies and was drawn in by the town’s short-lived real estate boom. By the time he bought five acres of land overlooking Glorietta Bay across from the Hotel del Coronado, he already owned the hotel and had bought the San Diego street railway system and the San Diego Union and Tribune newspapers. He gave architect Harrison Albright the first of several commissions to design and build the mansion where Spreckels and his family lived when they moved to San Diego. Completed in 1908 at a cost of $35,000, it featured six bedrooms, three bathrooms, a parlor, a library, a brass cage elevator, a marble staircase with leather-padded handrails and some of the Island’s most spectacular gardens. The Mansion was designated a Coronado Historic Landmark in 1977.
Coronado, San Diego County
Photographer: John Bare