The brief, troubled history of the Hotel Bon-Air
The large and elegant Hotel Bon-Air never quite lived up to its owner’s hopes and expectations. Margaret and John Manlove built the hotel in late 1901 and opened for business the following spring. Advertised as a “large, summer boarding house,” the Bon-Air also had several cottages, cabins and tents on the property for guests who preferred a more rustic vacation experience.
The land on which the hotel sat is the present-day site of MarinHealth Medical Center in Greenbrae. At that time, the area was known as Escalle, deriving its name from the popular resort, vineyard and train station named after its owner, Jean Escalle, just across Corte Madera Creek near Larkspur.
The first few years were the most successful for the Bon-Air, as newspapers reported the hotel catering to “fashionable guests” and hosting benefits for local charities where dining, dancing and vaudeville performances were on the bill of fare. The Manloves paid to have a road built across the marshland from Escalle and constructed a drawbridge over Corte Madera
Creek, both of which eased transportation to and from their establishment. The hotel also took part in the 1906 “illuminated water carnival,” when thousands came to see boats parade up the creek, fully lit with Japanese lanterns. The Escalle vineyard, nearby homes and all the arks along the creek were similarly illuminated, and visitors ended the evening festivities with dining and dancing at the hotel.
In 1908, Margaret Manlove became the proprietor of a new hotel in San Francisco, the Cadillac, at Eddy and Leavenworth streets. With her energies split between the two, she began looking for others to lease the Marin hotel. By 1912, the BonAir had been managed by several other hoteliers when Alfred Kreough and John Webster took out a 10-year lease. Within weeks, the two were literally at each other’s throats, with Kreough swearing out a warrant of assault on his partner and the papers reporting that the frequent friction between the two “necessarily injures the popularity of the resort.”
Before their partnership dissolved, the recently constructed saltwater pool leaked and had to be drained and re-cemented. The following year, as 200 opening night guests were being seated for dinner, Marin County deputy sheriff Oscar Emerald raided the hotel and carried away most of the movable furniture, including the bar, enforcing a court order for non-payment of a $2,000 debt. Soon after, the hotel had its liquor license revoked for serving minors during a Fourth of July celebration.
In 1914, the Bank and Trust Co., of Tomales, having already foreclosed on the property, sold off the furniture and the hotel closed permanently. The bank sold the property for $20,000in 1918 to Archbishop Edward Joseph Hanna of the Catholic diocese, whose 700-acre property abutted the land. There were caretakers living on the land when the hotel caught fire and burned to the ground in the early 1920s.
History Watch is written by Scott Fletcher, a volunteer at the Marin History Museum, marinhistory. org. Images included in History Watch are available for purchase by calling 415-382-1182 or by email at info@ marinhistory.org