The "new" Palace Hotel (opened 1909)
Completely rebuilt from the ground up, the "New" Palace Hotel opened on December 19, 1909, and quickly resumed the role of its namesake predecessor as an important San Francisco landmark, as well as host to many of the city's great events. While externally much plainer than the original Palace, the new "Bonanza Inn" is in many ways as elegant, sumptuous, and gracious on the inside as the 1875 building. The [[Media:Palace Hotel Garden Court.jpg|"Garden Court"]] (also called the "Palm Court")—which occupies the same area that the Grand Court did in the earlier structure—has been one of San Francisco's most prestigious hotel dining rooms since the day it opened.
Equally famous was the [[Media:Palace Hotel Pied Piper Bar.jpg|"Pied Piper" Bar]] located just off the gleaming polished marble [[Media:Palace Hotel Lobby.jpg|lobby]], which was dominated by Maxfield Parrish's 16 by, 250 lb [[Media:Palace Hotel Pied Piper Mural.jpg|painting]] of the same name.[23]
The Ralston Room, named for co-founder William Ralston, is off the main lobby to the left of the painting.
The hotel served as the stage for several important events. In 1919, Woodrow Wilson gave speeches in the Garden Court in support of the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations. In 1923, Warren G. Harding's term as president ended suddenly when he died at the Palace Hotel, in Room 8064, an eighth floor suite that overlooks Market Street.[24] In 1945, the Palace Hotel hosted a banquet to mark the opening session of the United Nations.
The Palace was sold to Sheraton Hotels in 1954 and became the Sheraton-Palace Hotel. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev spoke at a banquet at the Sheraton-Palace during his American tour in 1959. The Garden Court was declared a San Francisco Landmark in 1969. In 1973, not long after Sheraton was bought by ITT, it sold the Palace to the Japanese Kyo-Ya group, along with all of their hotels in the Hawaiian islands. Sheraton continued to manage the hotel and the name stayed the same. The entire structure of the Sheraton-Palace was declared a landmark in 1984.
The Sheraton-Palace Hotel closed on January 8, 1989, for a $150 million restoration that garnered national media attention and numerous awards. It reopened on April 3, 1991, as the Sheraton Palace Hotel, without the hyphen in its name. The Sheraton Palace was placed in The Luxury Collection division of ITT Sheraton when it was founded in 1992.[25] The hotel dropped the Sheraton name in 1995, becoming again the Palace Hotel. In 1997, the finale of the David Fincher film The Game, starring Michael Douglas, was shot in the hotel's Garden Court.
A 60 story, 204 to 207 m residential tower addition was proposed in 2006,[26] to be named the Palace Hotel Residential Tower, designed by the architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.[27] Construction never began due to the Great Recession.
The hotel's owners controversially removed the famed Pied Piper mural on March 23, 2013, for sale at a planned auction at Christie's. It was anticipated that the painting might sell for up to $5 million.[28] In the light of strong public opposition to the painting's removal, however, the hotel's owners relented and instead had the painting cleaned, restored, and returned to the bar where it was rehung with considerable fanfare on August 22, 2013.[29]
In 2015, the hotel underwent an extensive renovation designed by Beatrice Girelli of Indidesign to its guest rooms, indoor pool and fitness center, lobby, promenade, and The Garden Court, and also became part of the Marriott chain when Marriott acquired Starwood. In 2016, the Palace was named the Best Historic Hotel in the over 400 guest room category by Historic Hotels of America, an official program of the U.S. National Trust for Historic Preservation.[30] The Palace Hotel is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.[31]
2024 strike
On October 20, 2024, workers at the Palace Hotel who were UNITE HERE members joined other San Francisco hotel workers in going on strike.[32][33] As of December 2, 2024, the strike remains ongoing and was expected to last past the upcoming holidays.[34] On December 24, 2024, a four-year labor agreement was ratified, thus bringing the strike to an end.[35]
