San Ysidro Ranch

The hotel provides the public with little information about its history. Our team researches the hotel's past, from the very beginning, verifying its exact opening date and providing an overview of its history up to the present day.?If you have any useful information and would like to share it, please send it to archives@famoushotels.org.?Thank you This is what we know so far (attention: unverified history!): by the late 1700s the Ranch has been a way station for Franciscan monks. Later, in 1825 the adobe in front of the hacienda was built by Thomas Olivera as the original ranch house. It is the only structure that remains from those dagerous times. In 1883, John Harleigh Johnston of Gloucester, Massachusetts and Taylor Goodrich of San Francisco purchased the property. In 1892, sensing a growing popularity of other small resorts in the area, Harley Johnston made plans for a small hotel that would accommodate 40 people. The Johnston family managed the ranch until 1935 when it was sold to Ronald Colman and alvin Weingand. The pair operated it as an exclusive hideway for famous people. Bing Crosby, Audrey Hrepburn, Groucho Marx, Gloria Swanson. Vivian Leigh and Lawrence Olivier married there, in 1953, John and Jaqueline Kennedy honeymooned there. One of the 25 Dream Resorts,

Italian soap-suds: Bill and Lee Phillips Bell -- TV icons in Hollywood, hosted a wedding for their daughter Lauralee (Christine Blair Williams) that some say was the talk of L.A. Laura, star of the Young & Restless, married Scott Martin, after which the wedding guests partied at the San Ysidor Ranch -- playground for the famous. Bored? The Bells then flew the wedding guests to Italy, where they taped segments for their shows.