Fairmont San Francisco

The Fairmont San Francisco was days from its debut when the 1906 earthquake and fire gutted its brand-new shell; the young architect Julia Morgan—later of Hearst Castle fame—was engaged to rebuild it, and the hotel opened exactly one year after the disaster as a symbol of the city's resurrection. Crowning Nob Hill at the junction of two cable-car lines, its granite Beaux-Arts facade and gold-and-marble lobby have been the ceremonial heart of San Francisco ever since; the flag of every nation hangs here each June to mark the drafting of the United Nations Charter in the hotel's Garden Room in 1945.

History keeps arriving. Tony Bennett first sang 'I Left My Heart in San Francisco' in the hotel's Venetian Room in 1961, every US president since Taft has visited, and the rooftop-adjacent penthouse suite—with its two-storey circular library—ranks among the most storied hotel apartments in America. Rooms split between the original building, with its bay windows and high ceilings, and a later tower whose upper floors deliver sweeping views across the bay to Alcatraz and the Golden Gate.

Then there is the Tonga Room, the gloriously improbable tiki palace in the old basement swimming pool, where a band plays from a floating barge and tropical rainstorms break over the lagoon on schedule. It is kitsch, it is beloved, and it captures what the Fairmont does best: civic grandeur that refuses to take itself entirely seriously. For classic San Francisco—cable cars, fog, views and all—this is the address.