The Claremont hotel’s new management has tweaked its name

The Claremont, the 276-room luxury hotel at the foot of the Berkeley Hills, has changed hands for at least the 10th time in its 110-year-history — and the fifth since 2007. 

After a decade of operation under the Fairmont flag, management of the property passed to HEI Hotels + Resorts in February, two years after the hotel was sold to Ohana Real Estate Investors by the estate of Richard Blum, the husband of Sen. Dianne Feinstein. 

The hotel’s official name has changed to the Claremont Resort & Club. During Fairmont’s run, it was officially known as the “Claremont Club & Spa, a Fairmont Hotel,” a name which confused a fair amount of people in the area because of the San Francisco Fairmont Hotel, according to General Manager Edward Roe.

“The Fairmont San Francisco is the Fairmont in the Bay Area,” Roe said. “ The owners realized that after 110 years of history of the Claremont, that the name is bigger than a brand.” 

The Claremont also features a private club, whose 1,500 members have access to three heated outdoor saltwater pools, a luxury spa, a fitness center, tennis and pickleball courts, and three onsite eateries including the Limewood Bar & Restaurant.

Guests of the resort and members of the club shouldn’t notice much difference after the transition, other than the removal of Fairmont branding, according to Roe. 

The resort has about 300 full-time and 200 part-time employees. About 280 of the workers — including housekeepers, front desk agents, bell attendants, restaurant workers, spa estheticians and massage therapists and telephone operators — are unionized, according to Ted Waechter, a representative for Unite Here Local 2, a hotel and restaurant workers’ union that represents Claremont employees. Waechter said “successorship” provisions mean unionized employees will keep their wages, benefits and protections. 

A number of non-unionized staff, especially managers and directors, left for jobs at other Fairmont properties and some employees decided to retire, according to an employee who declined to give their name because they were not authorized to talk to the press. Roe said about 80% of the management team decided to stay with the hotel after the transition. 

HEI manages over 100 other hotels around the country, according to its website. The Claremont is in its “Lux Life” portfolio of “best-in-class” hotels operated with independent branding. The Hyatt Regency Sonoma Wine Country and the Jay, Autograph Collection in San Francisco, are in the same category.

Hotel’s history dates to 1915

The Claremont first opened in 1915, just in time for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, the world’s fair held that year in San Francisco. It was developed by a group known as the Claremont Hotel Company, including Francis “Borax” Smith — who made millions from his 20 Mule Team Borax company — and Frank Havens. Smith and Havens also developed the Key Route trolley system, which provided public transit in the East Bay and San Francisco, and included the hotel as a destination point along the line. Erik Lindblom, a Swedish-born gold prospector, who helped fund construction of the hotel, purchased it from the Claremont Hotel Company in 1918. 

The hotel was sold to Claude C. Gillum, the hotel’s former desk clerk, and his wife in 1937. The Gillums made major renovations to the hotel, including painting it white, just in time for another world’s fair, the Golden Gate International Exposition, held in 1939. 

A succession of people and corporations owned and operated the hotel over the next several decades before it was acquired by Morgan Stanley in 2007 as part of a $6.6 billion acquisition. After a 2011 bankruptcy filing, it eventually landed in the hands of GIC, an investment fund tied to the government of Singapore, which sold it to Blum along with FRHI Hotels & Resorts, whose Fairmont company managed the hotel. 

Blum was the sole owner of the hotel when he died in 2022, according to Roe,, while Fairmont continued to manage it. Blum’s estate sold the hotel to Ohana in 2023. 

 ”Everything stays the same at the Claremont,” said Roe. “There’s been different owners over the years, but it remains as the iconic Claremont.”

Ghost stories and Brangelina

The century-old hotel is deep in lore, including a plethora of ghost stories, something that the company does not shy away from. Every October, the hotel holds a series of Haunted History Tours, where guests are led down the legendary spooky halls, given access to areas usually off limits, and invited into the most haunted room in the hotel. 

Roe claims he has never seen a ghost himself. He also was tight-lipped when asked about some of the famous guests the hotel has hosted. 

Berkeleyside has reported that notable personalities such as then-Vice President Joe Biden, and First Lady Michelle Obama have been guests at the hotel, as have Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie — when they were still “Brangelina” — along with their six children. 

Pierce Brosnan and Robin Williams were on the property when they were filming the hit 1993 comedy, Mrs. Doubtfire, in a famous pool-side scene filmed at the Claremont.

The pool area is one of the Claremont’s most famous features, and a favorite spot for local teens to sneak into on hot summer days. Guests of the hotel have access to the area, as do members of the Claremont Club, along with a large fitness center, a spa, and eight tennis courts, complete with a USPTA-certified instructor. Last year the hotel opened four pickleball courts. 

The club attracts members from all across the East Bay. The resort has a Berkeley address, but most of the property is actually in Oakland, where it pays its taxes. 

The hotel is also home to Limewood Bar & Restaurant, where diners can sip a Grizzly Gimlet or a Claremont Sunshine. But for many of the Claremont’s 110 years, the hotel was not allowed to serve alcohol. Even after Prohibition ended, the hotel could not serve booze given that it was within one mile of UC Berkeley, and subject to a law that prohibited the sale of alcohol within that perimeter. 

But then some enterprising Cal students decided to measure the distance themselves, according to Roe. 

“It was slightly over one mile by a couple of feet to the carriage entrance,” he said, and according to local lore, the students “were given drinks for life.”

Who those students were, neither Roe nor anyone else knows, but like the ghosts that haunt the halls, they are part of the legend that will long remain within the hotel walls, no matter the owner. 

Claremont Resort & Club, 41 Tunnel Road, Berkeley. Phone: 510-843-3000. Connect via Instagram and Facebook.

Berkeleyside editor Zac Farber contributed reporting to this story.