Mission Inn & Spa in Riverside, CA

I grew up in Southern California and my Aunt lived in Riverside, CA: We would visit for the usual holidays, Thanksgiving and Christmas but I NEVER saw this part of Riverside! I remember her neighborhood which was pretty much middle-class suburbia. So that suburbia was what ‘I’ expected to find when we drove to The Mission Inn & Spa… not so.

This is the view when we arrived for our stay the night before our cruise to the Mexican Riviera. The palm trees were swaying, the Bougainvillea           glistened in the sun in their regal red and the grounds were perfectly     manicured.

History

The Mission Inn is considered the largest Mission Revival Style building in the United States. The Inn is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The property began as a small cottage hotel called the “Glenwood Hotel”, built by civil engineer Christopher Columbus Miller in 1876. In 1902, Miller’s son Frank Augustus Miller changed the name to the “Mission Inn” and     started building, in a variety of styles, until he died in 1935.

Miller’s vision for the eclectic structure was drawn from many historical   design periods, revivals, influences, and styles. These include Spanish     Gothic architecture, Mission Revival Style architecture, Moorish Revival     architecture, Spanish Colonial Revival Style, Renaissance Revival and Mediterranean Revival Style architecture. With one section over another, addition upon addition, the result is a complicated and intricately built structure. It contains narrow passageways, exterior arcades, a medieval style clock, a five-story rotunda, numerous patios and windows, castle towers, minarets, a Cloister Wing (with catacombs, now closed to the public), flying buttresses, Mediterranean domes and a pedestrian skybridge among many other features.

During the 30-year construction period Miller traveled the world, collecting treasures to bring back to the hotel for display. The various museum-quality artifacts on the property have an estimated value of over $5 million.

The St. Francis Chapel houses seven large, stained glass windows and two original mosaics by Louis Comfort Tiffany. The windows were salvaged from the Madison Square Presbyterian Church and the chapel was built to accommodate them. A 25 feet tall by 16 feet across, hand carved massive door was designed to allow the Mexican-Baroque styled gold leafed cedar “Rayas Altar” into the chapel. For his “Garden of Bells”, Miller collected over 800 bells, including one dating from the year 1247 described as the “oldest bell in Christendom”.

In 1932 Frank Miller opened the St. Francis Atrio containing the “Famous Fliers’ Wall”, which was used to recognize notable aviators. On March 20, 1942, WWI ace Eddie Rickenbacker was honored at the Inn, becoming the fifty-seventh flier added to the monument. Today, 151 fliers or groups of fliers are honored by having their signatures etched onto 10-inch-wide   copper wings attached to the wall.

Frank Miller died in 1935 and the Inn continued under the management of his daughter and son-in-law, Allis and DeWitt Hutchings, who died in 1956. The Inn then went through a series of ownership changes and some of its older rooms were converted to apartments.

The hotel was later acquired by the Carley Capital Group and was closed for renovations in 1985 at a cost of $55 million. Newly discovered structural problems cost more than expected and caused the company to fall behind on loan payments to a New York bank. This caused work on the nearly   completed hotel to be halted, just weeks before its planned opening in       December 1988. In December 1992, the Inn was sold to Duane R Roberts, a Riverside businessman and lover of the Inn. Roberts completed the                 renovations and it was reopened to the public shortly thereafter.

Gypsy Journal

We arrived just before 3 pm after a long drive from Safford, AZ and our necks hurt from craning our heads up to look at everything there was to see. We also had to remind ourselves to ‘keep our mouths closed’ as we oohed and awed at the magnificent architecture, the priceless artifacts, and the flowering orchids in the lobby.

After signing in, we went to our room on the 3rd floor and were awed yet again, first by the size of the room… it was 552 square feet: our RV is 152 square feet, that means we could fit 3 of our RV’s in this room. LOL. We had a king size bed with a great and comfy mattress, two luxurious white bathrobes, downy soft towels and slippers (that you can actually take home – just the slippers). We had a ‘sitting room’, huge bathroom, a desk (but who writes anymore), a mini-bar and a large flat screen T.V. Sorry, I always forget to take pictures of the room. We were not disappointed!

Pictorial tour

Strolling outside by the pool we enjoyed a drink and just took in the       marvelous sunny, warm and perfect day.  We were waiting for our ‘French nail treatment’ in the Spa. After our nail treatment, we were served tea or champagne while our nails dried, oh, and fancy chocolate also.

Since it was not quite dinner time, touring the other floors was the order of the afternoon. It took us a long time to explore the floor that lead to the     inner courtyard. The flowers and trees were very lush – I want the landscaping job here – just kidding…

The Inn has within its borders several restaurants; an Italian restaurant, a steakhouse, and the Inn’s official restaurant. We choose the Italian restaurant, Bella Trattoria. We sat outside, along a European-style sidewalk cafe. Once the sun was set and the light was fading, it got a bit chilly, so we had the waiter light the outdoor patio heater, since it was only March, after all. That made all the difference. Patti enjoyed a pasta dish and I had a green   salad with salmon – Great Food: we highly recommend this restaurant for your dinner dining pleasure!

In the evening, the Inn is lit up in distinctive ambient lighting. We took another walk-about and were rewarded by the full moon making her appearance during our walk.

After our relaxing stroll around the grounds we proceeded back to our     luxurious room, were we slept like babies for the night.

The next morning for breakfast we ate at the Inn’s main restaurant. The walls were hand painted with flowers winding up the curved ceiling and the chefs’ station was made of copper, very impressive.

We again explored other features of the Inn. We set out on a ‘mission’ to find the large Buddha statue and the St. Francis Chapel where they hold wedding ceremonies. The statue of Buddha is in a section of the Inn where the architecture is all Asian style, complete with oriental lanterns and bonsai plants. Sadly, we could only view the statue through the window.

The St. Francis Chapel was right around the corner from the Buddha area, featuring several testaments to the Saint. The inside of the chapel was also off-limits to visitors because there was a wedding ceremony commencing later in the afternoon.

We were disappointed that we could not see the inside of the chapel and were turning around to leave when a tour guide was just locking up another room across the patio and asked if we would like to take a peek into this hall. We, of course, said “Yes”. The ‘hall’ was filled with priceless paintings from around the world, we could not ‘enter’ the room but I was allowed to snap a couple of pictures…

Feeling redeemed from the quick look at richness, we were now approaching our check-out time of noon so we moseyed to our luxurious room to pack up and make our way to Long Beach, California to embark on our     journey to the Mexican Riviera via the cruise ship Miracle on the Carnival line. But no trip to a Mission is compete without a picture of the “mission bells”…