Created website and wrote content for The Union Hotel, Old Sacramento. The site included; events, history, bio, individual tenant pages, air BnB lodging, restaurant, bar, weddings, rooftop lounge, and private membership lounge.
Branded Content for The Union Lounge,
The second floor of The Union Hotel, Old Sacramento.
The second floor of The Union Hotel, Old Sacramento.
The Union Lounge was a private Membership-Based club for whiskey, cigars, cards, and private events. Home of the Sacramento Kings.
The Union Lounge
The Union Lounge
Rooftop Terrace
The Union Lounge
The Union Restaurant
The Union Air bnb
writing sample:
History of the Union Hotel
The Wild West
Sacramento was a small outpost on the edge of a river when gold was discovered in 1848. Needing lumber for his new outpost, Captain John Augustus Sutter sent his carpenter, James Marshall to build a mill. In January 1848 Marshall found gold in the dredgings of the sawmill and despite trying to keep it a secret, all hell breaks loose. It’s the last week of The Mexican War. Sutter’s men have abandoned him and squatters have taken over his land.
Travel was by ship and riverboat then. So the Old Sacramento waterfront quickly became the gateway to the goldfields. The local population exploded from 14,000 to nearly 225,000 people in just 4 years. It was during this time in 1850, that the earliest records of The Union Hotel appear in the archives.
Building The Union Hotel
Captain Samuel Deal built the original hotel named ‘The Verandah’ in 1850. The 2-story Verandah survived floods, fires, and a cholera outbreak before finally burning down in the great fire of 1852. The hotel was re-built by GL Tucker and RD Denton in 1852 and a 3rd floor was added in 1855. Like many structures after the great fire, it was reconstructed of brick with iron shutters. JP Dyer bought it in 1855, renaming it the Union Hotel.
Luxury Defined
An advertisement in The Sacramento Union, New Year’s Eve 1855, describes the Union Hotel as highly desirable for the business traveler. The newly rebuilt hotel is within a square block of all steamers and stages. 100 double and single rooms were let exclusively to males. The hotel featured entirely new interiors, a fine restaurant, and a billiard saloon with Rosewood tables. and a liquor and cigar bar. It boasted to be open at all hours to accommodate passengers arriving by boat and stage in the middle of the night.
The elegantly furnished rooms featured velvet carpets, mahogany furnishings, and spring mattresses. Tenants included The Cincinnati Restaurant and John Bradley & Co., purveyors of fashionable clothing, leather valises, and travel trunks.
The Competetive Edge
Wrestling the stagecoach contract from The Orleans Hotel, The Union remained the political and social hub of Sacramento until 1870. Politicians would speak to crowds at the public square across the street and ladies would watch from the comfortable second-floor balcony. It must have worked well as a political hub because its owner and proprietor JP Dyer was elected Mayor of Sacramento in 1857.
Fire, Flood & Resilience
December 1861 through January 1862, the Great Flood inundated Sacramento, nearly destroying the great hotel once again. From 1862 through 1869 the City began raising the town 15 feet to combat the persistent floods. Earth was moved in and buildings were raised. In April 1867 the Union Hotel, raised on jackscrews, began creaking and popping. The night watchman roused the sleepy lodgers and evacuated the building. 45 minutes later, all 3 floors of the Union Hotel along with furniture, fixtures and the 60-foot balcony came crashing down. Bricks, mortar and possessions scattered the streets. The Union Hotel’s luck continued. Not a single person was killed or injured.
Today
The Union Hotel has represented the center of activity in Sacramento for over 160 years. Re-built many times over, it persevered economic cycles from bust to boom. Located in The Old Sacramento Waterfront district, it has once again been chosen for renewal.
