Wraps
1902 · Santa Barbara, California
by [California]
Santa Barbara, California, 1902. Wraps. Very good. Promotional booklet for The Potter hotel in Santa Barbara, produced while the expansive resort was being built on Burton's Mound, the site of a former Chumash village. The brainchild of Los Angeles businessman Milo Milton Potter, the finished product was six-and-a-half stories high with 390 guest rooms, costing over $1.1 million, a princely sum at the time. The grounds were elaborately landscaped and included tennis courts, a zoo, a palm and fernery building, cactus gardens, and pathways. Potter sold the hotel in 1919 and it was renamed the Belvedere. The following year it changed hands and names again when it became part of the Ambassador Hotel chain. On April 13, 1921, the hotel caught fire and while the 110 guests were safely evacuated, the resort burned to the ground. Oblong octavo: 20 unnumbered leaves with photographic illustrations and architectural plans. Printed on the rectos only. Bound with two staples in pictorial paper wrappers (8" x 5 1/4"). Minor soiling to the front panel; otherwise very good. Scarce, OCLC locates only one holding, at the Bancroft. (Inventory #: 77141)