Hotel Union Square
Encyclopedia
Hotel Union Square is located in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...

. The Hotel features 131 guest rooms and suites, including the famed Dashiell Hammett Suite.

The hotel has kept its original 1915 Egyptian-motif mosaic murals, located in the lobby entryway. They are encased in gold glass bead wall covering.

The interior design was completed by San Francisco-based Irish Interior Designer Colum McCartan, founder and principal of McCartan Design, along with Lisa Sayed, partner of the hotel interior design company Sisterhood of the Traveling Hotels, who designed the Ring In the Kids Suite and Lisa Compagno designed the Dashiell Hammett Suite.

History

Hotel Union Square, which originally housed the Golden West Hotel, was constructed in 1908 for the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. Dashiell Hammett
Dashiell Hammett
Samuel Dashiell Hammett was an American author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories, and political activist. Among the enduring characters he created are Sam Spade , Nick and Nora Charles , and the Continental Op .In addition to the significant influence his novels and stories had on...

 and Lillian Hellman
Lillian Hellman
Lillian Florence "Lily" Hellman was an American playwright, linked throughout her life with many left-wing causes...

 may have conducted much of their love affair at the hotel, and Hammett loved the hotel so much that he booked his bride-to-be Josephine Dolan in a suite on the night before their 1921 wedding. During the Prohibition Era, a 10000 square feet (929 m²) speakeasy called The Golden Bubble was located below the hotel. The original terrazzo floors and wallpaper still remain in what is now used as a storage area. In the 1950s, the hotel was renamed the Golden State Hotel. Personality Hotels purchased the building in the early 1980s and opened Hotel Union Square in 1982.

In recent years, the hotel is said to have been haunted, particularly in Room 207. Some attribute a ghost in that room to Hellman.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK