Foresight, it can be argued a hundred years later.
Today the Mission Inn stands as a glorious reminder of a time when big things were happening all over California's Inland Empire. A century ago Riverside was a sweet-smelling citrus capital that was among the wealthiest cities in the nation, and Miller's B&B was becoming the place where rich and famous folk came to stay and play.
In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt made an overnight campaign stop and transplanted one of California's parent citrus trees in the Mission Inn courtyard, a proud moment highlighted in tours of the hotel even now that the original tree is long gone. Later, everyone from Booker T. Washington to Henry Ford would visit; Richard and Patricia Nixon married here, as did Bette Davis and William Grant Sherry (husband No. 3). Ronald and Nancy Reagan spent their wedding night at the inn, and Hollywood stars regularly cavorted on its posh upper floors. They still do. Because even though Riverside has slipped from renowned tourist destination to sleepy no-man's land lounging between the coast and Palm Springs, the Mission Inn's intriguing accommodations, reasonable rates, solid dining options, and unique combination of art and architecture make it a draw all by itself.
The best way to begin your stay is with a 75-minute, docent-led tour of the hotel. With many of the most impressive and intriguing sights now behind locked doors, you'll miss a lot if you don't enlist the help of a guide. Besides, there's much colorful history to the place, and these people are well versed in all of it.
How else would we have known that Raquel Welch actually draped herself across the lap of the eight-foot Buddha in the Ho-O-Kan room while filming 1975's "The Wild Party," or learned that Hopalong Cassidy (actor William Boyd) once worked the inn as a chauffeur and local guide? With little prompting, the docents rattle off lists of former guests at the hotel, including the likes of Helen Keller, Albert Einstein, Harry Houdini, Cary Grant, and Judy Garland.
