The Festival of Lights is mostly centered on the Mission Inn. The Mission Inn is a historical landmark so I really want to give a condensed history of this great building which encompasses an entire city block! The Inn began as the Greenwood, a two-story, 12-room adobe boarding house, built in 1876 by Christopher Columbus Miller on land deeded to him by the city as payment for his services as a civil engineer. In 1880, at age 22 and anticipating his upcoming marriage, Millers eldest son Frank purchased the adobe and surrounding property from his father for $5,000.
By the turn of the century Riverside was a major tourist attraction for wealthy easterners escaping to warm winter climates. What the city lacked, though, was a major tourist hotel. The Mission Inn of Riverside is more than a hotel or a museum or an arts center, although it is all of these. It evolved with its surrounding community reflecting the life around it. The major factors in it were the personality, cultural interests and business genius of Frank Augustus Miller, who became known as the Master of the Inn.
In 1902 Miller built a four story U-shaped hotel enclosing a large central courtyard. Over the next thirty years Miller added three more wings to the structure. In 1910 the Cloister Wing added more guest rooms,a music room and the St. Cecilia Chapel. The Spanish Wing came in 1913-1914 reminiscent of Spanish castle courtyards offered an outdoor dining experience, and included the Spanish Art Gallery to exhibit art and artifacts collected by Miller. The International Rotunda Wing completed in 1931 filled out the original city block. The Rotunda features an open-air, five-story spiral staircase, another art gallery, the Famous Flyers' Wall, the St. Francis Chapel and the Court of the Orient.
The hotel looks like a cross between a California mission and a European villa. The grounds include courtyards, bell tower, clock tower, rotunda, chapels, fountains, restaurants and a spa.
The St. Francis of Assisi Chapel was designed specifically to accommodate this massive eighteenth century gold-leafed cedar altar from Mexico and seven equally impressive Louis C. Tiffany stained glass windows. To get this alter out of Mexico without being stolen during the journey required it to be hauled in wagons covering the alter pieces with manure.
Miller cultivated a wide circle of friends from among his guests including President Theodore Roosevelt, Andrew Carnegie, Sarah Bernhardt, and many, many Hollywood stars who found this to be a great retreat. Bette Davis was married at the Mission Inn, as was Richard Nixon. Ronald and Nancy Reagan spent their wedding night here, and the list of famous people who've stayed here over the years includes Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant and Harry Houdini.
All told, 10 presidents have visited the inn, either before they lived in the White House, while they lived there or after they left. President George W. Bush visited in 1999, before he was elected, and again four years later, with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In the lobby is a sturdy reminder of one presidential visit in 1909. Miller, who knew something about drumming up business, understood that visits from a president was good publicity. Unless, of course, that president was well north of 300 pounds, big enough to make believable a story he'd heard that William Howard Taft had once gotten stuck in a White House bathtub.
The last thing Miller wanted was headlines of the president turning one of his chairs into kindling and crashing to the floor. So he commissioned construction of a special chair for him to sit in. The chair remains in the hotel lobby .
PERSONAL NOTE: My grandfather Bill Ellis was married there in 1943, honeymooned in room 414 and still has the key to this day!
After Frank Miller died in 1935, the Mission Inn began a slow decline. The Great Depression, increased mobility because of the automobile, and a shift in tourism to Palm Springs brought hard times upon the inn. Beginning in 1955, the Inn went through a series of ownerships, including the Riverside Redevelopment Agency. Finally, in December of 1992, the Inn was sold to Duane R. Roberts, a Riverside businessman and lover of the Inn. He opened it in its renewed status on December 30, 1992.
The current owner, Duane Roberts, started lighting the inn for Christmas in 1993, a nod to his childhood, when his parents drove him around the city to look at houses the local newspaper listed as having the most elaborate displays. "I remembered that and thought with the beautiful architecture of the Mission Inn that it would be something outstanding and special for the community," said Roberts.
The Mission Inn's Festival of Lights, which is considered one of the country's largest and most elaborate displays, has turned the inn into a holiday must-see in Southern California. There are more than 3.5 MILLION (!) lights covering the entire inn. It is ranked 3rd as the best lights to see in the nation.
Tens of thousands of people attend the lighting ceremony each year the day after Thanksgiving , and many more come through the grounds before the festival ends Jan. 4. The lights depict toy soldiers, elves, swans, Santa and many other figures and beloved symbols of Christmas.
Roberts says it takes work crews 10 weeks to put the displays up, and another three weeks to take them down, at a cost of some $250,000.
Seeing is believing - Enjoy!
Steve was even well enough to help Santa's helpers!
