LAKEPORT, Calif. – Saratoga Springs. Bartlett Springs. Hoberg’s Resort.
These names evoke early-day accommodations in Lake County, but other, lesser-known hostelries filled a niche that the grand resorts didn’t.
In Lakeport travelers had a handful of choices in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Benvenue, also called the Mound Hotel and Cottages, offered lodging on Main Street where St. Mary Immaculate Catholic Church is now.
The Clear Lake Hotel stood on Main Street between First and Second.
Perhaps the earliest hotel was the Mann House in the 1860s, but little is known of it.
Downtown, a succession of hotels in two locations served travelers and boarders for decades.
At First and Main streets was the establishment variously known as the Giselman, the Garrett and the Lakeport Hotel.
Third and Main was the location of Greene’s Hotel, and later the Lakeview Hotel and the Monroe Building.
Hotel owners and operators came and went, sometimes making it hard to follow the changes. In some cases the owner handled operations and at other times owners leased the hotels to managers.
Thomas Garrett operated both hotels at different times in the early 20th century.
Two women with similar names operated two different hotels on Main Street.
Mary Ann (Moody) Greene, wife of William Woods Greene, had Greene’s Hotel in the 1870s and 1880s.
W.W. Greene had kept hotels in Placer and Colusa counties before moving to Lakeport.
Mary Dale (Byrnes) Green, wife of Arthur Wellington “Wellie” Green, ran the Giselman in the early 1900s.
In the days when Lakeport had no restaurants, the hotel dining rooms filled the need. Food for the dining rooms came from the local area. Hotelkeepers raised chickens for meat and eggs and farmers supplied produce.
The hotels did more than house travelers. In the 1890s both hotels housed telephone switchboards.
Some small businesses rented workspace in the hotels. Local organizations such as the Lakeport Women’s Civic Club and the Lakeport Volunteer Fire Department held meetings and dinners in the hotels.
In January 1912 prominent Lakeport business men gathered at the Garret Hotel for a banquet and an evening of speeches on the state of the city.
The 1906 San Francisco earthquake damaged buildings in Lakeport including the Giselman and Lakeview hotels.
At the Giselman, the quake threw 11-year-old Inez Green out of bed, and in later years she remembered the bricks falling past her bedroom window.
Old photos show men cleaning up the bricks that fell from the Lakeview.
John Monroe bought the Lakeview Hotel in 1921 and converted it to a multi-use building with shops on the first floor and apartments above.
Monroe’s wife Rosa Greene was a granddaughter of W. W. and Mary Ann Greene who had operated Greene’s Hotel on the same location about forty years earlier.
On April 20, 1926, a fire destroyed the Monroe Building and other buildings on the west side of Main Street between Third and Fourth streets.
One-story buildings replaced all of the buildings destroyed in the fire.
Mary Raymond owned the hotel at First and Main from 1924 to 1943 when she sold it to Joseph “JoJo” Duke.
Mrs. Raymond removed the wooden veranda and installed steel fire escapes following several major fires in Lakeport in the mid-1920s. She also had 18 bungalows built behind the hotel in the 1930s.
A fire damaged but did not destroy the hotel in 1942.
Auto courts and motels supplanted Lakeport’s downtown hotels in the 20th century and now the hotels are a dim memory of a long-gone lifestyle.
The much-altered building at First and Main now houses an antique mall.
A mid-20th century façade was removed a few years ago to reveal graceful old columns, relics of the hotel’s prime.
Jan Cook has lived in Lake County for more than 40 years. She works for the Lake County Library, is the editor of the Lake County Historical Society's Pomo Bulletin and is a history correspondent for Lake County News. If you have questions or comments please contact Jan at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .