|
|
Article: Jewel of the East Bay hills.(Claremont Hotel, Oakland, California)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- Sunset
- Article date:
- May 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Sunset Publishing Corp. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
* It is a site fit for a king, this hillside peering over the roofs of Berkeley toward an expanse of shimmering bay. As kids, we gazed up at the Claremont Hotel and called it "the sugar candy castle"--the fantastic powder white turrets and dormers rising above a landscape of palm trees seemed transported from the pages of a fairy tale.
There really was a castle here long ago, built by a Kansas farmer who got lucky in the Gold Rush. With visions of nobility, he filled the grounds with foxes and organized hunting parties. His daughter married a real British lord, but the castle was less fortunate: It burned to the ground in 1901.
Since it was built in ...