The original hotel on the site was built by General
Marshall C. Wentworth, a US Civil War veteran, and designed by
Charles Frederick Whittlesey in the
Spanish Mission Revival-style. It opened in February 1907 as the
Hotel Wentworth, but the structure was only partially complete, with the first four stories finished and a temporary roof. The hotel's completion had been delayed due to a shortage of construction crews caused by rebuilding in San Francisco following the
1906 earthquake. The
Pacific Electric had already constructed their
Wentworth Line interurban railroad to serve the hotel in 1906. Heavy rains in 1907 kept away prospective guests, and the Wentworth closed in July 1907 after its first season. The Wentworth was purchased by railroad tycoon
Henry E. Huntington in 1911 and reopened in 1914 as
The Huntington Hotel after a major redesign by the architect
Myron Hunt which added the hotel's upper two floors and its iconic central
belvedere tower. California's first outdoor
Olympic-size swimming pool was added in 1926, when the hotel, formerly a winter resort, began operating year-round. The hotel was later owned by Stephen W. Royce, who sold it to the
Sheraton Corporation in 1954. In the wake of the disastrous
1985 Mexico City earthquake, seismic tests conducted on the hotel showed the main building to be unsafe. As a result, the hotel's main wing had to be closed without notice on October 20, 1985, causing a chaotic scramble to relocate hundreds of social events booked at the hotel over the coming months. The 89 rooms in the 1967 Lanai wing and the 18 cottage homes remained in operation as the
Huntington Sheraton Lanai and Cottages, while the six-story main building sat vacant. Huntington Hotel Associates (HHA) announced plans in 1986 to demolish the main wing of the hotel and replace it with a replica. After a year of debate and numerous pleas from preservationists, Pasadena voters chose on May 19, 1987, to give zoning approval to the demolition of the main building. HHA bought the hotel from Keikyu in December 1987. Sheraton ceased operating the hotel in January 1988, and it was renamed
The Huntington Hotel & Cottages. The contents of the main building were sold to the public in June and July 1988 and demolition of the main building began on March 27, 1989, lasting three months. The lanai and cottages closed in mid-1990 as construction of the new main building progressed. During the demolition and reconstruction of the main wing, the two historic ballrooms, the Viennese Ballroom (originally the hotel's dining room) and the Georgian Ballroom (originally the hotel's theater) were retained and incorporated into the new hotel, in addition to the other outbuildings such as the pool, lanai and bungalows, which were not required to be demolished. The $100-million reconstruction project revealed 10
stained-glass windows made of
opalescent glass in the Georgian Ballroom, which had been covered over by the Sheraton Corporation in 1954 when the space was converted into a dining room. ==Reconstructed building (1991–Present)==