Hotel Albert

Originally two separate hotels the Hotel Stephen and the Hotel Albert, the two merged in 1896 through the construction of a special hallway. The Hotel Albert marked itself as an elite and respectable establishment. Famous authors and painters like Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Robert Louis Stevenson, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and Salvador Dali all frequented the halls during their fame. Additionally, it established itself as a left wing political stomping ground hosting Russian revolutionaries in the early 20^th Century and Communist meetings during the McCarthy era. During the 1960s the hotel experienced the same musical wave as the neighborhood. Folk rock group The Mamas & the Papas wrote “California Dreamin’” while staying here. By the 1970s the hotel declined and was eventually converted back to residential use.