The Irresistible Charm of the Restored Hotel del Coronado in Coronado, California by Reed Karaim for Preservation Magazine

Whether or not you’ve been to the Hotel del Coronado, you’ve probably seen it. You’ve seen it onscreen in the classic 1950s comedy Some Like It Hot, where it towers majestically in the background as Marilyn Monroe cavorts on the beach. You’ve seen it in more than a dozen other movies or television shows, or on a postcard or a sidewalk artist’s painting in San Diego.

Somewhere, somehow, it likely has floated through your vision: an immense, gleaming white, tiered wedding cake of a hotel, topped with dark red towers and turrets and sitting on an endless, powdered-sand beach. It is emblematic of a certain, now somewhat nostalgic Southern California glamour: Hollywood stars and unknown bathing beauties, politicians and famous athletes, all posing for the cameras, feet in the sand, smiling against blue waves and bluer sky. The dream of California that drew millions.

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