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Aerial view of the Claremont Hotel and grounds Per Annalee Allen in the Montclarion, 7-25-1995: The Claremont Hotel sits on the site of the former Thornburg estate. Forty-niner William Thornburg came west from Kansas and struck it rich. He purchased 13,000 acres (part of Vicente Peralta's portion of the San Antonio Rancho) away from the fledgling township of Oakland. Thornburg, a lover of all things British, created a gentleman's country retreat complete with a three-story dreamhouse named "Maggie's Castle" for his wife, and beautiful gardens with exotic plant specimens (some still extant) and peacocks roaming the grounds. He raised Jersey cows and thoroughbred horses and conducted fox hunts, inviting the local "gentry" to participate. Thornburg sold his estate following his wife's death and his daughter's marriage to an English lord. Shortly after, the stately home burned to the ground. Transportation and real estate magnate Borax Smith and his partner Frank C. Havens acquired the property and made plans to erect a tourist hotel at the end of the Claremont branch transit line. Legend has it that Havens retained sole interest in the project when he and Smith decided one night to play a game of dominoes (some say checkers) and Smith lost. A competition for the design of the new hotel was held and the winner was Charles W. Dickey and his partner Walter Reed. Their half-timbered Elizabethan chateau was similar to another Havens-owned hotel in downtown Oakland, the Key Route Inn, which also featured half timbering and numerous gables (it was demolished in 1913)... According to Dickey biographer Robert Jay, the Tudor style was popular for west coast hotel architecture at the turn of the century. He cites the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego as one example. Dickey has been praised for his accomplished placement of the rambling structure across its hilly site. He designed three entrances, one for autos arriving from Tunnel Road, a porte-cochere carriage entrance approached from Domingo Avenue and an underground grotto where train passengers could disembark and walk directly into the building. This feature too, is reminiscent of the old Key Route Inn whre trains actually ran directly through the lobby and continued on to meet transbay ferries. Hotel contruction began in 1906 but cost overruns and an economic downturn forced Havens and his new partner, Klondike millionaire Erick Lindblom, to delay completion. The hotel finally opened 10 years later in 1915, in time for the Panama Pacific International Exposition. Havens was known for planting thousands of eucalyptus trees throughout his East Bay holdings in the mistaken belief thaat the trees could be harvested for various uses. THe tall stand of trees visable today behind the hotel was no doubt initiaed by him. When attempts were made to make bedsteads for the hotel from eucalyptus wood, (so the story goes) they soon fell apart and had to be discarded. Havens lived only three more years after his fantasy resort opened. Lindblom managed the hotel throughout the 1920's with the help of his son, Olaf. As the Depression era dawned, maintaining such a large facility became more and more of a burden. When banks threatened to forclose the hotel's fate became uncertain, but in 1937 a savior stepped forward. Claude Gillium, who had worked at the Claremont as a night clerk pledged his life insurance policy as security. The bank, eager to unlead what was beginning to be seen as a white elephant, signed over the whole kit-and-kaboodle to Gillim and his wife for a reported $250,000. Once again an exposition became the impetus to invigorate the project. The Gilliums shipped in 14 tons of white paint to "spruce up" the exterior of the building and completed many interior changes as well. The hotel reopened in time for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island. As Prohibition came to an end, the hotel's owners looked for ways to get around the law which prohibited liquor sales within one mile of the UC campus. Over the years Berkeley and Oakland had grown up around what had once been a gentleman's country retreat and while the hotel may well have been within the one mile limit "as the crow flies," enterprising Cal students discovered that traveling from Sather Gate to the hotel by way of residential streets constituted more than a one mile journey, and the ban was lifted. A new era was beginning when the rustic veranda lookout was replaced with the Terrace Lounge where coctails were served to an eager clientele. The Big Bands were coming into vogue and the Claremont became "the" place for dancing, dining and imbibing. For a time, a radio station even broadcast live from the hotel. The Gilliums eventually sold their interest in the hotel in the 1950s, realizing a coll million dollars cash on their investment. Since 1917, the Portland-based Harsch Investment Corp. has overseen further changes to the Claremont. New tennis courts, pool and spa facilities have been added, ground re-landscaped and guest rooms refurbished. According to hotel literature, since acquiring the hotel the Harsch Corp. has pumped $46 million in improvements to upgrade the hotel into a European-style resort facility. Up until the mid-1970s, the property was partly in Berkeley and Oakland. As the hotel sought to expand and develop, it petitioned to be entirely located in Oakland, so as to be under the jurisdiction of what was thought to be the more flexible Oakland planning department. Since 1976, the Claremont has been officially in Oakland....Acknowledgements to former Oakland attorney Richard McDonough for information on this article. (W. Markel, 9/2002): In l989 the KSL Recreation Corporation purchased the property. Following a neighborhood application, in July, 2002, the Oakland City council rezoned the building to be a City Landmark and established a special Design Review requirement on the grounds. The same year the Sate Office of Historic Preservation declared the original hotel building, boiler building and portions of the grounds to be eligible to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places.