Pico House

Pio Pico, California's last Mexican governor, built the Pico House in 1870 as Los Angeles' most elegant hotel, with indoor plumbing, gas lighting, a French restaurant, lavish furnishings, and 82 rooms that reflected the city's social and cultural ambitions. Born in 1801 at the San Gabriel Mission, Pico became one of California's richest and most powerful men during the Mexican period, served briefly as governor in 1832 and again from 1845 to 1846, moved the capital from Monterey to Los Angeles, distributed land grants generously, and said money he received from selling former mission lands helped support the Mexican-American War. After returning from Mexico in 1848, he remained an influential land baron, gained wealth from cattle during the Gold Rush, and held extensive ranch properties in what is now Whittier and San Diego County. After the Civil War, he sold San Fernando Valley property, bought land on Main Street, and spent heavily to create a grand hotel whose balconies overlooked a courtyard fountain and whose second floor walkway connected guests to the neighboring Merced Theater. For about a decade the hotel realized his hopes, but gambling, poor investments, and swindlers cost him the property, even as he continued to entertain there. As Yankee power rose, Pico's fortunes collapsed; he lost major ranch lands through lawsuits, debt, and foreclosure, was evicted from his Whittier ranch in 1892, and died two years later penniless and homeless. The Pico House was condemned in 1922, then acquired by the state more than thirty years later and restored as part of the historic plaza park alongside the Merced Theater and the 1856 Masonic Temple.

Los Angeles, California · United States