For many people, the fond memories of a past Disneyland trip are not limited to just those of the park itself. They include things as exciting as the first airplane flight to LAX, the first summer cross-country drive to Anaheim, or the first stay at the Disneyland Hotel. And while the Disneyland Hotel still exists, it now sits crowded next to the Paradise Pier Hotel, overshadowed by the more luxurious Grand Californian and the yuppyish Downtown Disney.
Disneyland Hotel: The Early Years, 1954 – 1988 is now available in various places, including Amazon.com.
The Disneyland Hotel didn’t always used to be just another face in the crowd. In fact, it marked many firsts in the hotel industry, and was the must-stay landmark for Disneyland visitors from the world over. Now, in Disneyland Hotel: The Early Years, 1954 – 1988, author Donald Ballard has written a book full of history, trivia, and photos. But best of all, the book is filled with enough memorabilia that it is sure to elicit sighs of joy, and of things lost. In short, anyone who has stayed at the Disneyland Hotel—especially if you remember things like the Garden Villa rooms and the Monorail Cafe—should run out and get their hands on this book.
Did you know that the Walt Disney Company was not the owner of the Disneyland Hotel until the late 1980s? I did, but that bit of information was always academic for me, because the only face I associated with the hotel was Disney. This book gets it straight, though. It begins at the beginning, with an introduction to Anaheim, and Walt Disney’s final decision to drop his plans for a park neighboring his Burbank studio for new land out east where oranges grew in orchards and people had to duck their heads while driving to avoid the vegetation. But instead of staying with Walt and the history of Disneyland, the book introduces two new individuals: Jack Wrather and his wife, Bonita Granville Wrather (at this point you may have had a light bulb go off in your head, because Mrs. Wrather is honored in two locations in the hotel: The hotel’s Bonita Tower, and Granville’s Steakhouse).
Although his company had its ups and downs, Jack Wrather was an extraordinarily successful and shrewd businessman. And with the support of his wife, his company owned and ran the Disneyland Hotel from its inception through 1988, when it was finally sold to the Walt Disney Company.
The book includes graphics of a number of sample memorabilia, including these brochures from the mid- to late-1950s. Image courtesy Donald W. Ballard.
Do you remember when you stayed at the hotel? Don has separated the decades into different chapters, so you can quickly go to your era and read up on what happened then. Or if you’re not in the mood for lots of reading (although you will want to; it’s an interesting read throughout), you can look at all of the many photos that Don has included in the book. The book is in a smaller coffee table format, and each page includes a photo or some graphic, and these provide instant flashbacks to those periods. Logically, many of the photos from the ’50s are in black and white, and progress to color (and some appropriately faded with age). Don uses a variety of graphics, and includes things like postcards, brochures, and newspaper clippings in his book. In fact, think of Disneyland Hotel as basically a memory scrapbook for the hotel itself.
Towards the back of the book, Don has included some handy reference information, including a filmography and TV appearance list of Bonita Granville (who was a child actress and who continued to work in Hollywood until her marriage), a timeline of historic events at the hotel, and a bibliography.
The book jacket mentions that Don spent three years resarching his book, during which time he pored over old historical documents and paperwork, as well as interviewed numerous people involved in the operation of the hotel. It becomes obvious when you read the book that this is a project of love. We asked him the following questions to find out a little more about how he went about putting his book together.
Of all the things related to Disneyland, what is it that drew you to decide to research and write a whole book about the Disneyland Hotel, since most people would probably find more interest in the park itself:
There hadn’t been anything written on the Disneyland Hotel and its history. I always loved staying at the Disneyland Hotel and was interested in its architecture and amenities, as well as its history. I loved eating at the Monorail Caféand I always liked the fact we could use the Monorail to get into and out of Disneyland.
Your interest in writing about the hotel started with one article. Where was it published, and what was the article about? I’m assuming it was about the hotel, but what OF the hotel?
The article was never published because it was too long. They had an 1,800-word limit and I think I had at least doubled that. I couldn’t find a logical way to edit or cut it without conveying what I wanted to get across.
[Ed. note: MousePlanet will be publishing this original article later this month.]
It took you three years to research information for this book. You list an extensive bibliography at the end of the book, but can you tell me a little bit about how you went about researching things? Did you find it easy or challenging to find people to talk to? Did they have great anecdotes to share with you?
Disney was not interested in the least on anything to do with a book on the history of the Disneyland Hotel. I was told flat out that they (Disney Publishing Worldwide) felt the concept had too limited an audience. I was also refused access to the Disney Archives in Burbank. My only route was to self-publish or find another publisher. I contacted Carlene Thie from Ape Pen Publishing and she was open to helping me out. She has been a real help as well as a great friend. She currently has five books published and available at the resorts worldwide.
Ebay played a huge part in my research. I began buying up every brochure, magazine, book or Hotel-related item and within a couple of years, had quite a collection. I feel my Disneyland Hotel collection is now possibly the most extensive in existence. I learned quite a bit from those brochures and began looking up more specific names (such as owners, architects, builders, suppliers, contractors, and vendors).
It was right around this time, after persisting with Disney legal, that I was granted access to the Disney Archives. I was actually surprised on how little the archives had on the Hotel and its history. [Disney archivist] Dave Smith informed me that since Disney did not own it until 1988, they kept very few items with respect to the Hotel. Nevertheless, I did find some interesting articles, photographs and material. Dave was also under the impression that the book would have a very limited audience. (An interesting footnote. Dave informed me I would probably only sell six copies of the book. At the NFFC show, I signed book number seven for him).
Soon after, I found the Wrather Archives at Loyola Marymount and spent a week there researching for the book. They had boxes full of material on the inner workings of the Hotel as well as detailed histories on Jack and Bonita Wrather. I was able to view family photos, ID cards, various certificates, daily schedules, meetings on the initial Hotel construction, Disneyland Gold Cards signed by Walt Disney (from 1956 until 1966), important documents and various other items related to all aspects of the Disneyland Hotel.
A short time later, I came into contact with Christopher Wrather (who wrote the introduction to the book). Chris is the youngest child of Jack and Bonita and is an intensely private individual and initially did not answer my e-mails. After some pleading on my part, he agreed to write the intro for the book. I had approached others who worked in the Wrather Corporation but none of them would return my calls or e-mails.
I’ll never forget the day on July 8, which was my birthday. I had just received my initial copies of the book and my phone rang. It was Chris Wrather, and he wanted me and my wife to stop by his home on the way to Southern California for the NFFC Disneyana Show where we debuted the book. We were supposed to drop by for a few minutes, and we ended up staying several hours. Chris shared many stories with me and said how grateful he was that someone finally recognized just what his father did for Walt Disney. He told me how happy those days were for him at the Hotel as a child and how happy the Hotel made his mom and dad feel.
At one point in our conversation, it appeared Chris became a little emotional. What came next was amazing! Chris loaned me a stack of matted photographs of the first year on the Hotel grounds. Some of these, I had never seen in such detail. He also loaned us the groundbreaking shovel to display at the show. It was a wonderful experience. What a shame Disney has nothing currently at the Disneyland Hotel recognizing Jack Wrather as the original owner, operator and innovator of the Hotel…
I also was granted access to many vintage photographs of the Disneyland Hotel stored at the Grand Californian. These were rare, early construction shots as well as photos of various years all the way through 1970. I was able to use many of these for the book.
A cast member named Dave Lay was extremely helpful with this. I am extremely grateful to Dave for his help. I had gone down to the Disneyland Hotel around Thanksgiving 2004 with many of my early Hotel brochures. I tried to get in to see someone about displaying these items for the Hotel’s 50th anniversary display. Before I knew it, I was in a conference room with Mr. Tony Bruno, Vice President of the Disneyland Resorts in Anaheim. They were amazed at the stuff I had brought.
My family was flown down a few weeks later where I did a presentation to the team creating the 50th display for the Hotel. A few weeks later, we were flown down again to do a presentation for Mr. Wing Chao at Walt Disney Imagineering in Glendale. We were supposed to have about 30 minutes with him but ended up staying over two hours. He (Wing) was thrilled with my collection and my passion for the Disneyland Hotel’s history. Unfortunately, none of my collection was used for the display due to time constraints but I am hoping they will use it to make the display even nicer than it is. After all, how many 50th anniversaries do you have?
I found many interesting items at the Anaheim Library through some friends who do research. They sent me many wonderful items on the Hotel’s groundbreaking ceremony, and other interesting Hotel stories.
Lately, I have been in contact with Mr. Frank Bret, who was Vice President and General Manager of the Disneyland Hotel from around 1960 until 1981. He and his wife have shared many wonderful stories on the early days of the Disneyland Hotel. Frank and Liz are now retired and living in the Seattle area. I plan on using some of their stories for my Web site on the Disneyland Hotel.
I recently attempted to contact Mrs. Helen Alvarez, the original partner to Jack Wrather the first three years the Hotel was opened. They had a bitter breakup in 1958 when Jack bought her out. She is in her mid-80s, living near San Diego.
What was the one truly interesting or amazing thing that you discovered during your project? Kind of a, “Oh, I had no idea” or “I can’t believe that” or “That’s the funniest/most incredible thing I’ve learned” type of thing?
That is a tough question. Some amazing things I learned. The first tower building was the first high-rise in Anaheim. The Bonita Tower was the first building on the West Coast to use solar power. The Disneyland Hotel was the first motor hotel to cater to children as well as adults. The Disneyland Hotel was the first hotel to accept credit cards. At first I was amazed that Disney did not own the Disneyland Hotel. Disney was going to charge the Wrather Corporation $10,000 a day to service the Monorail if Wrather did not sell the Hotel to them. The Monorail maintenance contract had expired and was due for renegotiation. They were playing hardball because a rumor had surfaced that Wrather was selling to a non-US company. The rumor was correct.
Seeing that the hotel continued on after 1988, why did you give the subtitle years as ending in 1988? Was it primarily because you were really trying to focus on the hotel as a Wrather entity? Do you have any interest in covering in-depth what happened in the 10 years subsequent to that?
I wanted to focus on the years prior to Disney taking over the Hotel.
I would love to do another book starting with Disney’s take over in 1988. I guess that will depend on how well this first book is received. Let’s hear it from your readers. Would you like something on the Disney Resorts in Anaheim covering the years 1988 to 2005?
Go out and buy this book. It will provide you with endless hours of interesting reading, recollecting of happy memories, and enough facts about the hotel that you can share and boast with all your friends and neighbors (as if they don’t already think you are a Disneyland fan).
In the meantime, if you can’t wait for the book to arrive, Don has a Web site, called MagicalHotel.com (link). You can view sample pages, as well as look at some really nifty collectible items from the hotel.
Do you have some special memories from your stays at the Disneyland Hotel? Send us a message!
