History
The original Fairmont is located in the city of San Francisco. The nearly completed structure survived the earthquake of 1906. Although heavily damaged by the subsequent fires, the hotel was renovated under the eye of architect Julia Morgan and finally opened in 1907. It was later acquired by Benjamin Swig in 1945.
Starting in the 1960s, Fairmont began developing a small chain of luxury hotels in major cities across the United States. The Fairmont chain consisted of seven properties in the United States when it was bought by Canadian Pacific Hotels & Resorts in 1999:
- The Fairmont San Francisco
- The Fairmont New Orleans (formerly and now again The Roosevelt)
- The Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel (Boston)
- The Plaza Hotel (New York)
- The Fairmont Chicago
- The Fairmont Dallas
- The Fairmont San Jose
In addition, the Bellevue Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia had operated for a time in the 1970s as The Fairmont Philadelphia.
After purchasing Fairmont, in 2001 Canadian Pacific took on the name of the much smaller chain to reflect the new international focus of the company.
In early 2006, after a contentious bidding war started by investor Carl Icahn. Icahn lost the bid and Fairmont agreed to be sold for $3.9 billion USD to Colony Capital, LLC and Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Hotels International.
As a result of that purchase, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts was merged with Kingdoms's Raffles Hotels and Resorts and Swissôtel to form Fairmont Raffles Hotels International (FRHI), though the four chains still operate under their individual names. At the time of the purchase, FRHI also owned Canada's Delta Hotels & Resorts; however, Delta was sold on October 2, 2007 to bcIMC (British Columbia Investment Management Corporation).
In October 2008, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers" by Mediacorp Canada Inc., and was featured in Maclean's newsmagazine. Later that month, it was also named one of Greater Toronto's Top Employers, which was announced by the Toronto Star newspaper.
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