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25-763: Preceding the Hotel Galvez overlooking the beach was the Beach Hotel, designed by Nicholas J. Clayton and completed in 1883. It was located on Tremont Street. The Beach Hotel was similar in style to some of the grand hotels built in the 1870s, the San Francisco Palace , the United States Hotel , and the Grand Union Hotel . Clayton equipped the Beach hotel with a mansard tower, a feature that he has also installed on

50-479: The St. Mary's Infirmary in 1874. The three stories and three pavilions of the Beach Hotel rested on a base of 300 piles, arranged in three octagonal structures surrounding a rectangle, decorated in a polychrome-stick style. The Beach Hotel operated until 1895, followed by brief re-openings in 1896 and another renovation by Georg Korst in preparation for another opening in 1898. However, a boiler room fire on July 22 consumed

75-411: The adobe brick walls from rain. Other features included long exterior arcades , an enfilade of interior rooms and halls , semi-independent bell-gables , and at more prosperous missions curved 'Baroque' gables on the principal facade with towers . These architectural elements were replicated, in varying degrees, accuracy, and proportions, in the new Mission Revival structures. Simultaneous with

100-690: The Franciscan missionaries all came from the same places of previous service in Spain and colonial Mexico City in New Spain . The New Spain religious buildings the founding Franciscan saw and emulated were of the Spanish Colonial style, which in turn was derived from Renaissance and Baroque examples in Spain. Also, the limited availability and variety of building materials besides adobe near mission sites or imported to Alta California limited design options. Finally,

125-528: The Hotel Galvez deteriorated. The hotel received a major refurbishing in 1965. In 1971, the hotel was acquired by Harvey O. McCarthey and Dr. Leon Bromberg. Denton Cooley purchased the hotel in 1978 and initiated another major renovation to the hotel in 1979. The Galvez became a Marriott franchise in 1989 and was renamed Marriott's Hotel Galvez . The hotel was purchased in April 1995 by Galveston native and real estate developer George P. Mitchell . Mitchell restored

150-636: The bid of Franklin "Jack" Letton as its first manager. A veteran managing a variety of hotels——including Hotel Knickerbocker , the Ritz-Carlton in London, and the Grand Hotel at Mackinac, Michigan——Letton signed a ten-year management contract to operate the Galvez Hotel. Letton recruited experienced hotel professionals as head waiters and managers, while offering housing at a staff quarters located blocks away from

175-412: The construction contractor. They completed the initial segment in 1904. While the seawall was under construction, a second complementary project was under way to raise the level of land on the east end of the island, by jacking up the existing structures and underfilling them with slurry. The land behind the seawall, including the site of the former Beach Hotel was raised by 16.5 feet. The entire seawall and

200-402: The entire hotel. Firefighters saved a restaurant and a small shop on adjacent blocks, but flames crossing another street spread to another shop and a restaurant, which were total losses. The Beach Hotel was never rebuilt. The 1900 Galveston hurricane struck Galveston on September 8. Storm surge reached fifteen feet. At one point during the storm, the wind shifted to blow from the north, pushing

225-479: The hotel to its historic 1911 look. Mitchell Historic Properties, brought Wyndham Hotels & Resorts on to manage the hotel in 1996, as under the name Hotel Galvez, a Wyndham Historic Hotel . The name was later changed slightly to Hotel Galvez, a Wyndham Grand Hotel During Hurricane Ike in 2008, the hotel lost clay tiles from its roof and was flooded on its lower level, where the spa , health club , business offices , and laundry were located. In May 2021,

250-586: The hotel was occupied by the United States Coast Guard for two years and rooms were not rented to tourists. The Hotel Galvez's importance to the local economy was restored after the war, particularly during the late 1940s and early 1950s when illegal gambling was popular in Galveston. When the Texas Rangers shut down the illegal gambling industry in the mid-1950s, the local economy became depressed and

275-416: The hotel was purchased by Mark and Lorenda Wyant, through their Dallas-based Seawall Hospitality LLC. It was renamed Grand Galvez Resort & Spa and management was transferred from Wyndham to Marriott's Autograph Collection division. The Wyants completely renovated the hotel, restoring numerous original features, including the original pink exterior paint scheme. The bold, colorful interiors were inspired by

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300-473: The hotel. The Galvez Hotel staged its grand opening for June 12, 1911. The hotel owners collaborated with the Galveston Chamber of Commerce to promote the event. A basic single room without a bathroom was available for $ 2 per night or $ 12 per week, or with a bathroom for $ 2.50 per night or $ 16 per week. On October 3, 1940, the Hotel Galvez was acquired by William Lewis Moody, Jr. During World War II ,

325-657: The iconic interiors of The Greenbrier and The Beverly Hills Hotel . The renovations were completed in 2023. Nicholas J. Clayton Nicholas Joseph Clayton (November 1, 1840, in Cloyne , County Cork – December 9, 1916) was a prominent Victorian era architect in Galveston, Texas . Clayton was born on November 1, 1839, in Cloyne, County Cork, Ireland. His father, also named Nicholas Joseph Clayton, died in 1848. Margaret O'Mahoney Clayton, his mother, moved from Ireland to Cincinnati

350-503: The island, the plans accelerated, in order to draw tourists back to the island. The hotel occupies the site where the Beach Hotel, Electric Pavilion, and Pagoda Bathhouse once stood. The hotel was designed by Mauran, Russell & Crowell of St. Louis, Missouri , in a combination of Mission Revival and Spanish Revival styles and was constructed at a cost of $ 1 million. The Hotel Galvez opened in June 1911. The Galveston Hotel Company selected

375-416: The landfill projects were completed in 1910. An organizational meeting convened in Galveston on February 13, 1910 for the purpose of raising capital and planning a resort hotel overlooking the new seawall. Isaac Herbert Kempner , John Hutchings Sealy , Bertrand Adoue, and Joseph Lobit each pledged a $ 50,000 investment from their firms. By March, the project raised more than $ 500,000. After a design committee

400-540: The missionaries and the indigenous Californians had minimal construction skills and experience with European designs. The missions' style of necessity and security evolved around an enclosed courtyard , using massive adobe walls with broad unadorned plaster surfaces, limited fenestration and door piercing, low-pitched roofs with projecting wide eaves and non-flammable clay roof tiles , and thick arches springing from piers . Exterior walls were coated with white plaster ( stucco ), which with wide side eaves shielded

425-486: The original style's revival was an awareness in California of the actual missions fading into ruins and their restoration campaigns, and nostalgia in the quickly changing state for a 'simpler time' as the novel Ramona popularized at the time. Contemporary construction materials and practices, earthquake codes, and building uses render the structural and religious architectural components primarily aesthetic decoration, while

450-777: The same year. Clayton constructed many grand religious and public buildings in Galveston including the First Presbyterian Church (Galveston, Texas) . He is also credited as the architect of Sacred Heart Catholic Church (Tampa, Florida) and of the Main Building of St. Edward's University in Austin, Texas . He also designed an addition to St. Mary Cathedral in Galveston. 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 1879 1880 1882 1883 1884 1886 1887 1888 1889 1890 1891 1892 1893 1895 1896 1905 1912 Mission Revival The Mission Revival style

475-428: The service elements such as tile roofing, solar shielding of walls and interiors, and outdoor shade arcades and courtyards are still functional. The Mission Revival style of architecture, and subsequent Spanish Colonial Revival style, have historical, narrative—nostalgic, cultural—environmental associations, and climate appropriateness that have made for a predominant historical regional vernacular architecture style in

500-423: The style is known as Spanish Mission . The Mission Revival movement was most popular between 1890 and 1915, in numerous residential, commercial and institutional structures, particularly schools and railroad depots . All of the 21 Franciscan Alta California missions (established 1769–1823), including their chapels and support structures, shared certain design characteristics. These commonalities arose because

525-521: The summer months. Instead, the chose "Galvez Hotel" for the namesake of Galveston Island, Bernardo de Gálvez . Galveston civic leaders began plans to build the Hotel Galvez in 1898, after a fire destroyed another large hotel overlooking the beach, (the Beach Hotel ). After the devastating Hurricane of 1900 , which killed approximately 6,000 Galveston Island residents and leveled most of the buildings on

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550-527: The tides in Galveston Bay back into the city, as Galveston received surging water from the north and the south. About 6,000 people died in Galveston alone. Within days after the storm, the Deep Water Committee convened to consider plans for protecting the city from hurricanes. The three engineers on the committee recommended a concrete seawall to protect the city from storm surge. By 1903, the Galveston

575-516: Was appointed, Mauran & Russell of St. Louis was chosen as the architecture firm for the hotel. Meanwhile, the board also contracted with Daniel Philip Ritchey , a hotel design consultant to collaborate with Mauran & Russell. While the board considered named it the Galveston Beach Hotel, they rejected anything naming including "beach" because it suggested a greater exposure to the weather and also that that it would be open during

600-501: Was part of an architectural movement , beginning in the late 19th century, for the revival and reinterpretation of American colonial styles. Mission Revival drew inspiration from the late 18th and early 19th century Spanish missions in California . It is sometimes termed California Mission Revival , particularly when used elsewhere, such as in New Mexico and Texas which have their own unique regional architectural styles. In Australia,

625-555: Was selling infrastructure bonds and raising revenue from authority granted by the State of Texas . Construction on the seawall began in February. The seawall was built to seventeen feet in height, flared from a fifteen-foot base to five feet at the top. The Robert Board, the three engineers tasked with the planning of the seawall for the City of Galveston, hired J. M. O'Rourke and Company of Denver as

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