The Mission Inn is almost as old as Riverside itself.
Created in 1874 as the humble Glenwood Hotel, the idea for the hotel came from engineer and surveyor Christopher Miller, who brought his family to Riverside hoping to cure his wife’s lung ailments. The young town of Riverside needed a hotel, and the Miller family needed income.
In subsequent years, the small hotel grew into a typical cottage hotel of the era. By 1880, it had been taken over by Miller’s children. Frank Miller was the idea man behind the operation, and Alice Miller Richardson, the hospitality maven.
The Glenwood Hotel witnessed the tremendous growth of Riverside during the 1880s and 1890s.
RELATED: Riverside’s historic Mission Inn sold to San Manuel Nation
By the turn of the 20th century, though, Frank Miller and other civic leaders were lamenting the fact that wealthy, upscale Riverside, which was attracting investment in citrus lands, did not have a grand hotel.
Frank Miller aimed to change that.
Commissioning Los Angeles architect Arthur Benton to design a new hotel, Miller set out to renew Riverside. Benton designed a new building steeped in the romanticized architecture of California’s missions, popularized by the novel “Ramona.”
The New Glenwood, as the Mission Inn was initially called, opened to guests in winter of 1903 and was an instant success. Over the years, its name would change to the Glenwood Mission Inn, then simply the Mission Inn, and, most recently, the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa.
Miller’s clientele were wealthy eastern patrons wanting to escape winters — the “snowbirds” of his day. He sought to entertain them and give them a unique experience. As such, the hotel was constantly being changed. Artifacts from Miller’s travels graced private rooms, public rooms and outdoor courtyards.
Over a roughly 30 year period, he added three wings to the initial building, so by 1931 the entire block his father had purchased some 60 years beforehand was covered with rooms, artwork, artifacts, and architectural curiosities. The hotel had formal art galleries, open areas devoted to different cultures of the world, two wedding chapels (one of which boasted massive stained glass windows built by the Tiffany studios), and entertainment venues featuring a massive pipe organ and other accoutrements.
When Frank Miller died in 1935, in the midst of the Depression, his daughter Allis and her husband DeWitt Hutchings became managers during a difficult time. When they died in the early 1950s, Riverside was a completely different place than the one into which the Mission Inn had been built.
Miller’s second wife and grandchildren sold the Mission Inn to hotelier Ben Swig, who modernized it in the style of the 1950s and ’60s.
Despite all the best efforts, though, the Mission Inn was on a long, slow, downhill progression throughout the post-war era.
By the 1970s, part of it was being used as low-income apartments, a temporary dorm for UC Riverside, and a hiding place for youthful shenanigans.
The city of Riverside, having been convinced of the need to save the Inn, bought it and kept it running through the nonprofit Mission Inn Foundation, but it was apparent then that something big had to be done — staying the course was no longer viable.
In the early 1980s, Riverside sought a buyer for the hotel, someone who would renovate it completely. A company was found and the Mission Inn closed in June 1985, for a two-year renovation. Two years stretched to seven as bankruptcies and other issues kept the Mission Inn under lock and key.
In 1992, Duane Roberts approached the city of Riverside and was able to purchase the hotel and reopen it with lightning speed.
Since then, the Mission Inn has witnessed not only its rebirth but the rebirth of Riverside’s downtown.
Duane and Kelly Roberts are to be commended for their work over the past 30-plus years, and Riverside and the Mission Inn can look forward to many more years under new ownership, announced Monday, May 4.
The Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation in Highland is buying the 238-room Mission Inn Hotel & Spa. And while details of the sale have not been disclosed, the deal is expected to close at the end of the month.