Palace Hotel, a Luxury Collection Hotel, San Francisco

The Palace Hotel features a grand glass dome that glows over the Garden Court. When William Ralston opened the hotel in eighteen seventy-five, he intended it to be the largest and most luxurious in the world. He filled it with internal balconies and a carriage entrance that allowed guests to arrive inside the lobby away from the street noise. The original structure survived the nineteen oh six earthquake, but fire destroyed the interior. Workers rebuilt the hotel and reopened it by nineteen oh nine.