Seven years into the half-billion-dollar renovation of the Hotel Del Coronado, the oceanfront resort is about to unveil the final and perhaps most challenging chapter yet — the restoration of its year-old Victorian building, a project so ambitious it required shutting down every one of the guestrooms for over a year. While a portion of the red-roofed icon already had been refurbished a few years earlier as part of the multi-phased project — most notably the lobby and front porch entrance — the guestrooms, outdoor courtyard and wood-paneled meeting venues had remained untouched, until now.
Just seven bathtubs remain in the entire building. A long-ago courtyard fountain and bronze statue of Venus were returned to the garden.
And an unexpected bonus — following painstaking research and dismantling of walls and ceilings — are now revealed treasures, among them a fresco, that had been masked by decades of paint, wall coverings and plywood veneers. On Feb. Although the rooms were last updated in , the renovation marks the single largest restoration of the Victorian on record. The project also yielded 37 additional rooms, as larger suites were downsized to make room for more guestrooms.
The additional rooms made sense, given the ample inventory of larger suites, villas and cottages scattered throughout the resort, said former General Manager Harold Rapoza, who now is Area Vice President for Hilton.
The hotel already has celebrated multiple milestone moments during the course of the year-long overhaul. That includes a new glass-enclosed sun deck and signature fine dining restaurant, hundreds of refurbished rooms and the addition of 75 high-end residences housing new rooms. And come May, Nobu, a high-end Japanese restaurant founded by renowned chef Nobu Matsuhisa, will open in the beachfront space formerly occupied by Sheerwater.
