From Primedia Publications

The Mission Inn
Riverside, California

By Laura Mayer

A century ago, California's warm winters and her romantic history of adobe missions and immense haciendas brought trainloads of Easterners to the state. The Mission Inn seemed built to order, fulfilling guests' fantasies of the old mission days. A short drive from Los Angeles, the Mission Inn today is perfectly positioned for day trips to local wineries, mountain and desert resorts, hot springs and sites of historic interest.

A haven of red-tiled roofs, vine-covered pergolas and campanarios filled with ancient bells, the sprawling inn began as the modest Miller family home in 1875. Evolving over the next six decades under son Frank Miller's direction, the Mission Inn today covers a full city block of a resurging Riverside downtown, surrounded by museums, other period Spanish Revival architecture and an outdoor mall of charming shops and cafes.

Frank Miller was never rich, and much of his vision was bankrolled by railroad magnate Henry Huntington. But what Miller lacked in finances he more than made up for in promotion. Wandering the silent halls at night in a monk's robe tied with a rope, Miller created still-pervasive rumors that the Mission Inn indeed began as a mission. Riding east on local trains and meeting westbound ones several hours out of Riverside, Miller anonymously roamed the aisles, talking up the virtues of both his city and his hotel. Los Angeles? Who needed to see Los Angeles?

Understanding the importance of famous guests, Miller arranged in 1903 for President Theodore Roosevelt to replant in the inn's courtyard one of the original trees that had launched Riverside's successful citrus industry. The combination of a president and a venerable orange tree made it into newspapers local and distant. Equally interesting guests drawn to the inn included industrialist-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, actress Sarah Bernhardt, escape artist Harry Houdini, educator Booker T. Washington, blind and deaf writer and lecturer Helen Keller, aviatrix Amelia Earhart, auto tycoon Henry Ford and evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson. The inn was also a favorite of the early Hollywood movie colony as well as World War II fliers at nearby March Field.

Impressive public areas and guest rooms in the inn reflect Miller's eclectic interests at different stages in his life. At first he favored Mission Revival style and employed it for the U-shaped wing surrounding the old Miller family home, renamed the Old Adobe. Many architectural details at the inn specifically trace back to California's 22 Franciscan missions.

In 1915, Miller created the inn's Cloister Wing and the famous catacombs that snake below. He filled the subterranean corridors with treasures snapped up at the close of San Francisco's 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, including a 21-figure, life-sized Papal Court of Pius X. Next, the Moorish-influenced Author's Row celebrated Miller's favorite authors. Their names are mostly forgotten today, except perhaps for songwriter Carrie Jacobs Bond who, the story has it, wrote "The End of a Perfect Day" at the inn.

In the narrow St. Francis chapel, a massive altar gleams with gold leaf. Built in the early 1700s for a wealthy Mexican family, it was bought sight-unseen by Miller for $5,000 in 1920 and arrived in Riverside packed in used stable straw. The chapel, popular for weddings, has beautiful Tiffany windows from a razed Stanford White church in New York along both sides of the high-ceilinged room. Couples who've walked down the red-carpeted aisle include Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis (twice).

Miller's growing interest in Asian art and culture inspired the Court of the Orient, built to house his collections from the East. The beautiful and impressive International Rotunda, the last open corner of Miller's city block and the last section planned and built by Frank before his death in 1935, reflected his commitment to world peace.

Miller and his family collected art and artifacts from around the world to furnish the unusual guest and public rooms in the inn's many wings. Remains of the Millers' collections of bells, crosses, religious art and memorabilia of all types can be seen in the hotel and in the Mission Inn Museum. Be sure to take a docent-guided tour, as many of the most interesting hotel locations aren't open to the public due to their priceless content, and the significance of open areas can be easily overlooked without a knowledgeable guide.

As with most old hotels, the Mission Inn fell on hard times. With the development of Palm Springs and the advent of commercial flight, destination hotels were seen as stodgy and old-fashioned. To lure guests after World War II, Frank's daughter and son-in-law replaced the old family adobe with a swimming pool and added several bars and nightclubs, but to little avail. They died in the '50s and the inn passed out of family hands and into those of Ben Swig of the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. Known for his success in reviving old hotels, Swig "modernized" the inn, auctioning off many of its treasures and replacing the mission-style furniture with naugahyde.

The hotel continued its downward slide and nearly became a parking lot. After the charming Carnegie Library next door was razed in 1963 for a huge, boxy replacement, the townspeople rallied to preserve what Frank Miller had worked so hard to create.

But the inn still teetered on the edge for years. In 1985 a development company launched a $50 million, three-year restoration of the property but went bankrupt just two weeks before the doors were to open. The inn sat empty for another four years until local businessman Duane Roberts put together a financial package to reopen Riverside's beloved landmark in 1992. Once again it was one of the most unusual hotels in the world. Its inviting rooms and suites, no two alike, may contain spiral staircases, stained glass, fireplaces and an amazing array of other architectural details that have survived the years intact. Original furniture and artwork have made their way back to the inn from local and distant sources, and there's an ongoing program to locate and restore paintings, statuary and other artifacts.

Now that the inn is a National, State and Local Historic Landmark, any worries of demolition rest only in the records of the Mission Inn Museum, which interprets the inn's history with exhibits and tours.

It has been said that Frank Miller created a past that never was. And more than 100 years later, getting lost in time is still a preferred activity at Riverside's Mission Inn.

The Mission Inn
3649 Mission Inn Avenue
Riverside, California 92501
(800) 843-7755 or (909) 784-0300