Emperor Norton in the Happy Valley Room
A Rare Glimpse of the Original Setting of a Beloved Mural at San Francisco’s Palace Hotel
90 Years Old This Month
ENTER THE PALACE HOTEL, in San Francisco, through the main Market Street entrance. Make your way down the the short flight of marble stairs that leads to the hotel’s central corridor. Almost immediately, you will see to your right the entrance to what now formally is called the Pied Piper Bar & Lounge.
Walk inside, where you’ll find a room dominated by Maxfield Parrish’s 1909 painting, “The Pied Piper of Hamelin,” that hangs over the bar.
But keep walking. Exit this room on the other side, thread a small passageway, and you’ll come to another room — larger.
Take a half-dozen steps inside then turn behind you — where the view will look something like this:
Detail of photograph of the “lounge” of the Pied Piper, in the Palace Hotel, San Francisco. Source: Pied Piper
The two murals — each, 4½ feet by 7 feet — were painted by Antonio Sotomayor (1904–1985) in 1935.
The mural on the right features actor and singer Lotta Crabtree, riding in a carriage, and Frederick Coombs a.k.a. George Washington II.
On the left, the mural beloved by Nortonians has Emperor Norton front and center, with Mark Twain and Bret Harte in supporting roles.
Emperor Norton mural in the “lounge” of the Pied Piper, in the Palace Hotel, San Francisco. Photo © 2014 The Loup Garou via Trip Advisor.
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IT TURNS OUT that the Sotomayor murals were not always located in this room.
Until quite recently, the most authoritative record The Emperor Norton Trust had seen for a 1935 date for the murals was the following listing in a report, A Survey of Art Work in the City and County of San Francisco, published by the San Francisco Arts Commission — then called the “Art Commission” — in 1953:
“Emperor Norton and Lotta Crabtree.” Listing for two murals, 1935, by Antonio Sotomayor, in Martin Snipper, A Survey of Art Work in the City and County of San Francisco, Art Commission, City and County of San Francisco, 1953. Source: Internet Archive.
A couple of weeks ago, we came across the following contemporaneous feature about the Norton mural — the first post-installation coverage we’d seen of either of the murals — in the 1 September 1935 issue of a New York-based magazine, The Art Digest, which recently had absorbed a San Francisco art magazine, The Argus:
“San Francisco’s Beloved Madman Is Pictured by Artist and Poet,” review of new Emperor Norton mural by Antonio Sotomayor together with new poem about the Emperor, The Art Digest, V9 N20, 1 September 1935, p. 12. Source: Internet Archive
In its 1953 survey, the San Francisco Arts Commission specified the location of the Sotomayor murals as “North wall of ‘Happy Valley Room,’ Palace Hotel.”
So, what — and where — was the Happy Valley Room?
The answers to these questions go to the precise origin and date of the murals. But, getting at the answers starts 26 years before 1935 — with the opening of the new Palace Hotel in 1909.
Here’s the 1909 plan of the first floor of the hotel. The highlighted area is the 2-room space currently occupied by the Pied Piper Bar & Lounge.
With Market Street along the right (north) perimeter of the plan, the orientation is:
W
S N
E
First-floor plan of the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, 1909, highlighting the space currently occupied by the Pied Piper Bar & Lounge. Original plan from Yearbook of the Architectural League of New York and Catalog of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Exhibition, vol. 24, 1909, p. 90. Source: Hathi Trust
In the highlighted area, the first room off the central corridor — the smaller of the two rooms, where the Maxfield Parrish painting now hangs — originally was the Palace Hotel Barber Shop.
From the hotel’s opening in 1909 until 1989 — with a 14-year gap for Prohibition — the Parrish painting was not here but, rather, on the south wall of the larger room — the room where the Sotomayor murals now hang. Initially, this was called simply the Palace Hotel Bar. And, it was a male-only preserve.
The Palace Hotel Bar closed in 1920, under Prohibition, with the Parrish painting moved and exhibited on loan at the de Young Museum. The Bar reopened with the Parrish returned to its original location in December 1934.
As to the barber shop…
The founder and original owner of the Palace Hotel Barber Shop was Bernard Bernhard (c.1838–1925). With John Stahle — in the firm of Stahle & Bernhard — Bernhard co-owned a shop at the Russ House (217 Montgomery Street between Bush and Pine) when the two expanded with a branch at the original Palace Hotel in 1877. The hotel had opened in 1875.
When Stahle and Bernhard went their separate ways in January 1882, Bernhard took over the Palace Hotel shop under his own name. His son George joined the business in 1886.
By the time the new Palace Hotel opened in 1909 — the original having been lost in the earthquake and fires of 1906 — George Bernhard had taken over management of the business. After George’s father Bernard died in February 1925, he moved the business into a larger Palace Hotel space along New Montgomery Street in January 1926.
It was in the “old” barber shop space — adjacent to the Palace Hotel Bar that had reopened in December 1934 — a new cocktail lounge opened in March 1935.
It was called the Happy Valley.
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HERE’S A 1954 floor plan showing the new arrangement. Note that, by this time, the Palace Hotel Bar was being called the Pied Piper.
First-floor plan of the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, 1954, highlighting the space currently occupied by the Pied Piper Bar & Lounge — together with the original locations of Antonio Sotomayor’s murals in the Happy Valley cocktail lounge. Original plan courtesy of Eddie Petruskevich. Annotations by John Lumea.
Culturally speaking, the big shift ushered in by the Happy Valley in 1935 was that — unlike at the Pied Piper, which remained exclusive to men — women could drink here, so long as they were accompanied by a male escort.
A courtesy notice on the first page after the inside front cover of the menu advised patrons of the rules:
Detail of the inside front cover and first page of the Happy Valley cocktail menu, c.1935. Source: eBay
The Palace made the new drinking hierarchy clear in this ad that appeared in the weekly Emanu-El and the Jewish Journal on 29 March 1935:
Ad for the new Happy Valley cocktail lounge at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, Emanu-El and the Jewish Journal, 29 March 1935, p. 5. Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection
Taking early advantage of women’s drinking privileges at the Happy Valley, in October 1937, was Alma Spreckels:
Item about Alma Spreckels at the Happy Valley, San Francisco Chronicle, 14 October 1937, p. 14. Source: Genealogy Bank
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OUR FOCUS here, though, is the art direction of the Happy Valley.
On 15 February 1935, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article announcing what appears to have been a kind of “soft opening” for the new cocktail lounge, hosted by the “Chamber Opera Group” on 1 and 2 March 1935.
Headline and lede of article, “Chamber Opera Group to Gather at Happy Valley to Open Cocktail Room,” San Francisco Chronicle, 15 February 1935, p. 23. Source: Genealogy Bank
The article went on to note that “the room will be reminiscent of early California days with its heavy furniture and its murals of Lola Montez and Lotta Crabtree in gilt frames.” (In fact, Lola Montez is not depicted in either mural.)
A few days later, on February 20th, the Chronicle ran the following photograph and caption revealing the artist of the murals to be Antonio Sotomayor, with the public opening of the Happy Valley set for March 4th — 90 years ago today.
Here, Sotomayor is painting the mural that features Lotta Crabtree and George Washington II.
Antonio Sotomayor painting the Lotta Crabtree mural for the new Happy Valley cocktail lounge in the Palace Hotel, San Francisco Chronicle, 20 February 1935, p. 12. Source: Genealogy Bank (A clearer and much larger scan of this photograph, which appeared without the original caption in a 1978 San Francisco Examiner article about Sotomayor, is in our May 2020 article here.)
Walk in to the Piper Piper today and the main bar, with the Maxfield Parrish painting above, is immediately to the right — along the north wall.
This is where the bar of the Happy Valley was situated. The bar was flanked by the two Sotomayor murals — with the Emperor Norton mural on the right side of the bar.
This photograph dated 11 April 1935 may be the best surviving view of the Norton mural in its original context. The right side of the bar, with two women seated at stools, is visible on the left:
Antonio Sotomayor’s Emperor Norton mural on the right flank of the bar of the Happy Valley cocktail lounge at the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, 11 April 1935. Source: San Francisco Public Library
Panning to the left, the following view takes in the full bar. Sotomayor’s mural of Lotta Crabtree and George Washingrin II is visible flanking the left side of the bar:
The bar of the Happy Valley cocktail lounge in the Palace Hotel, San Francisco. Flanking the bar on the left is Antonio Sotomayor’s mural featuring Lotta Crabtree and George Washington II. Just out of view on the bar’s right flank was Sotomayor’s mural featuring Emperor Norton. Source: Richard Harned, The Palace Hotel (Images of America series), Arcadia, 2009, p. 121.
Finally: In the following view of the south wall of the Happy Valley — taken from the northwest corner of the room — the mirror carries a reflection of the Norton mural on the opposite side:
View of the south wall of the Happy Valley — taken from the northwest corner of the room. Sotomayor’s mural of Emperor Norton on the north wall is reflected in the mirror. Source: Historic Hotels of the World
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INITIALLY, at least, the Sotomayor murals featured prominently in the Palace Hotel’s branding of the Happy Valley.
For example, the Happy Valley cocktail menu featured reproductions and descriptions of both murals:
From the postcard carousel at the Palace Hotel newsstand…
Newsstand of the 1909 Palace Hotel, San Francisco. From an undated souvenir booklet in the collection of the Society of California Pioneers. Source: Internet Archive
…one probably could buy the following postcard featuring the description from the Happy Valley cocktail menu:
A new personal acquisition of mine is this matchbook cover produced by the Ohio Match Co. Whereas most matchbooks have 20 or 30 sticks, this was a 14-stick “Junior” size that Ohio produced only in the 1930s — so, this probably is from the earliest days of the Happy Valley:
Happy Valley matchbook cover produced by Ohio Match Co., 1930s. Collection of John Lumea.
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IN 1989, the Palace Hotel closed for a major 2-year renovation.
When the hotel reopened in 1991, the Happy Valley was not in the mix.
The Pied Piper bar — i.e., the bar itself — and the Maxfield Parrish painting were moved to the smaller room where the Happy Valley had been for 54 years, the room that originally housed the Palace Hotel Barber Shop. This became the Pied Piper Bar.
The Sotomayor murals were moved to the east wall of the original Pied Piper room — and the relationship between the murals flipped, with the Norton mural now on the left rather than the right. This larger room was reimagined as a new restaurant called Maxfield’s — with the Pied Piper Bar serving as a kind of “front door” to the restaurant.
For reference, here is the 1954 floor plan showing the location of the Sotoymayor murals since 1991:
First-floor plan of the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, 1954, highlighting the space currently occupied by the Pied Piper Bar & Lounge — together with the current locations of Antonio Sotomayor’s murals in the “lounge” of the Pied Piper. Original plan courtesy of Eddie Petruskevich. Annotations by John Lumea.
Sometime between 2010 and 2015, Maxfield’s was quietly retired, and the two rooms were united as the Pied Piper Bar & Lounge.
Anyone who was not drinking at the Palace Hotel at least 35 or more years ago likely will not remember the Happy Valley or the original location of the Sotomayor murals in the room that now hosts Maxfield Parrish’s legendary 1909 painting.
Indeed, it is a testament to the thoughtfulness and quality of the hotel’s 1989–91 renovation that the Sotomayor murals appear and feel like they’ve been in their current location from the beginning — when in fact they spent their first 54 years in the next room.
It’s a mostly forgotten history that is worth remembering.
So, happy birthday to the Happy Valley murals of Antonio Sotomayor! — with a special shout-out to the Norton mural, which has kept the Emperor’s benevolent spirit alive among Palace Hotel drinkers and diners for 90 years.
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