401–403 Taylor Street
Hotel
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1923
Built as the Hotel Californian, mid-priced hotel with 250 rooms with baths, to the design of the architect Edward E. Young. Sixteen storeys over a basement, reinforced concrete structure, decorative panels, beltcourses, balconies, parapet, three-part vertical composition with extension, Renaissance/Baroque ornamentation with Spanish Colonial revival extension.
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1923
A twelve-storey steel-frame apartment hotel in brick was built at the northwest corner of Taylor and O'Farrell for its owner-builder Matthew A. Little, designed by Edward E. Young in Renaissance Revival with a Spanish Colonial Revival lobby costing $65,000 — coffered ceilings painted and carved, cast plaster piers with twisted colonnettes at the corners, a frieze of paired angels holding a medallion, and an iron screen of the same motif across the check-in.
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1924
Built by Matthew A. Little.
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April 1924
The hotel opened as an upscale apartment hotel and proved popular enough that an extension was planned within its first year. One- and two-storey wings on three sides let daylight into every room, and were designed as a buffer in case another tall building went up alongside.
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1929
Four floors and a hundred rooms were added at a cost of $500,000, to a design by Alfred Henry Jacobs that turned the exterior from Renaissance Revival to Art Deco. The eleventh-floor balconies and tenth-storey cornice were taken off to suit the new design, a third lift was put in, and the corner shops were remodelled into a coffee shop with entrances from both the lobby and the street. The building now stood sixteen storeys, numbered to seventeen with no thirteenth floor, with 250 rooms each having its own bath.
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1935
The Glide Foundation bought the hotel, two blocks from the Methodist church it had built, and ran it as San Francisco's only temperance hotel, letting rooms to religious organisations. It stayed in the Foundation's hands until 1978.
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1942
An extensive remodelling reworked the shopfronts in stone, tile and brick, rebuilt the coffee shop, replaced the lift cabs, made a second floor at mezzanine level over part of the shops and glazed in the front of the mezzanine. None of the original fanlights survive; glass-block windows took their place.
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Mar 1983
Additions alterations or repairs.
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September 25, 1998
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its part in the temperance movement.
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Nov 1998
Installation of a highrise fire alarm & life safety system.
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Feb 1999
Additions alterations or repairs.
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Feb 1999
Revision to appli#-09824450.
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Apr 1999
One stop: redecorate existing rest., food prep, on mezzanine, etc.
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Jan 2004
Erect double face electric projecting sign.
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Dec 2009
Exterior window replacement, painting, and masonry and sheet metal maintenance/repair. highrise building no rescue window required. new doors on roof.
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Jan 2011
Interior remodel of an existing bar & restaurant with new finishes throughout. the remodel shall include a reconfigured bar with new equipment & a reconfigured storefront entry. new mechanical, electrical, plumbing, & life safety work performed on a design build basis & submitted as a separate permit.
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Apr 2011
Remove existing fabric awning & install new exterior metal awning.
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May 2011
Interior non structural demolition per ab 017 of ground floor restaurant space.
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May 2015
Scope of work is replacement of existing mezzanine level windows with new windows to match existing, glazing shall be vision glass, convert two (2) existing conference rooms into 5 guestrooms. also improve existing fitness room & existing office space in basement level. n/a ordinance #155-13.
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May 2017
Project scope consists of the select demolition & renovation of public space areas. hotel lobby, work includes demolition & construction of walls, ceilings, floors, fixtures & finishes. no exterior work. no change in egress. no plumbing work perform on this permit.
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Jan 2018
Fire alarm ti - add 17 speaker/strobes in one sleeping room strobes in bathrooms, 17 smk det with sounder bases, 17 control modules, 2 monitoring modules for power monitoring & 1 power supply- low fregancy sound addedref # 201706300767.
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Jul 2023
Replace existing f/a panel with new notified nfsz-3030, new speakers will be added in bedrooms/guest rooms to match sq ft sleeping, (1) f/a control unit, (182) smoke detectors, (3) duct detectors, (1) heat detector, (16) speaker ceiling mounts.
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May 2025
Provide new fire smoke damper at top of the stairwell for smoke relief. tie the fire smoke damper into the existing fire alarm system.
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Jan 2026
Ti to an existing restaurant space. scope includes the select removal of walls, accessible improvements, new flooring, finishes, wall tile & upholstrey, select light fixtures & bar equipment to be replaced. electrical & plumbing under trade permit. no exterior scope, change to exits or mechanical scope.
DBI holds 73 permits for this parcel, most of them tenant improvements on individual floors. The timeline shows the 24 largest by stated cost, plus the earliest on file; the DBI query in the sources below returns all 73. 9 of them are nominal $1 street-space or sidewalk permits. 9 expired or cancelled permits are not shown.
Nearby
- 400–420 Taylor Street Same street
- 405–415 Taylor Street Same street
- 428–430 O'Farrell Street Same block
- 434–436 O'Farrell Street Same block
- 438 O'Farrell Street Same block
- 501–507 Geary Street Same block
- 401–411 O'Farrell Street Around the corner
- 415–421 O'Farrell Street Around the corner