Hotel Fete for Woman, 99, Fulfills Dream Deferred by 1906 Quake

SAN FRANCISCO — Helen Huntington Perrin celebrated her 99th birthday in the Fairmont Hotel on Saturday, fulfilling a dream she thought had ended when the 1906 earthquake destroyed the interior of the Nob Hill landmark.

Her father, Pliny C. Huntington, was to have been the general manager of the hotel in 1906, its inaugural year. The position disappeared when the quake struck, pushing back the opening a full year.

Perrin, who was 11 in 1906, dreamed of spending her childhood in the hotel.

“She just knew that she’d be meeting all sorts of famous people from all over,” her daughter Martha Williams, 63, told the Contra Costa Times.

Ownership of the hotel changed after the earthquake and Perrin’s father did not get the job.

His daughter celebrated her birthday with family and friends, and the hotel hosted a birthday dinner, complete with a cake topped with 99 candles.

Perrin, of Rossmoor, paid the turn-of-the-century rates of $10 for a suite, 30 cents for breakfast, 45 cents for lunch and $1.30 for dinner. The suite rate today is $750. Her family paid $2.50 for their rooms.

“It’s overwhelming,” said Perrin. “It just floors you.”

The hotel was approached by Williams, who told officials how her mother almost lived in the Fairmont. “We told them that we could not afford a whole lot, but we would just love to honor her and give her this nice gift of staying there,” she said.

Perrin slept in a nicer bed than the one she was in when the quake struck her San Francisco home in 1906. That was a Murphy bed that folded up into the wall.

“It started to fold up,” she recalled. “It finally did start to go down, and, believe me, I got out of that bed in a hurry.”