In the heart of Ensenada, San Nicolas Hotel and Casino is within a 5-minute drive of Riviera Cultural Center and First Street. This casino hotel is 1 mi (1.6 km) from Ensenada Regional History Museum and 1.5 mi (2.3 km) from Playa Hermosa. Popular Hotel Amenities and Features. Call for unpublished prices: 855-516-1090 Nearest airport and around San Nicolas Hotel Casino - Ensenada, Hotel. The hotel lies nearly 6 miles from the center of Ensenada, providing quick access to Instituto Tecnologico de Ensenada. The pleasant property is situated 1.2 miles away from Calimax Chapultepec 2. You can easily visit Centro de Estudios Tecnologicos Industrial Y de Servicios Num. 74, situated just outside Estero Beach Hotel & Resort.

The hotel at its opening in 1930

The Hotel Riviera del Pacífico was a hotel located in Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. It was one of the most prestigious and luxurious hotels in Mexico.

Ahora 70 € (antes 8̶9̶ ̶€̶) en Tripadvisor: Reserva San Nicolas Hotel and Casino, Ensenada. Ve 176 opiniones y 364 fotos de viajeros sobre el San Nicolas Hotel and Casino, clasificado en el puesto nº.23 de 46 hoteles en Ensenada. The location of the hotel is at the far end of Ensenada. The casino is attached to the hotel and is buzzing with life. Why not 3 Stars? The customer service and the pool were amazing. Why not 5 Stars?

History[edit]

Rear of the hotel in 1930

Hotel Riviera del Pacifico, now the Centro Social, Cívico y Cultural de Ensenada (Riviera del Pacifico Cultural and Convention Center)

The hotel opened with great fanfare in 1930 but was not a real success until the early 1950s. It finally closed in 1964.

Origins[edit]

Prohibition sent North Americans south of their border in search of entertainment and alcohol, developing first Tijuana, then Rosarito, and finally Ensenada as tourist destinations.

The Ensenada Beach Club, S.A. was formed with the goal to build a resort in Ensenada. After the Club dissolved in 1926, a number of its members joined a new company, Club Internationale, S.A., to continue the project, initially called the Hotel Playa de Ensenada (Ensenada Beach Hotel). Architect Gordon F. Mayer was hired to design the hotel; Alfredo Ramos Martínez was hired to do its murals. The Playa Ensenada Hotel and Casino opened on October 31, 1930 with spectacular festivities, including the Xavier Cugat band, under the de facto management of boxer Jack Dempsey. ^[1]^[2]

Decline[edit]

The hotel was never a financial success, however, partly because the road from the United States was poor, and the end of Prohibition proved fatal. The hotel only ever operated intermittently, and was put to military use during the Second World War.

Revival and final closure[edit]

After the end of the War, one of the original shareholders, Jerome Utley of Detroit, by then an old man and the only remaining shareholder, gave the hotel to a young lady with whom he was in love, Marjorie King Plant. Plant ran the hotel successfully with her Mexican lawyer and husband, Alfonso Rocha, changing its name to Hotel Riviera del Pacífico. Utley had been led to believe that Plant's marriage to Rocha was a 'white marriage,' that is a marriage of convenience serving only to give Plant the Mexican citizenship she needed to run the hotel, and when he discovered that this was not the case, he pursued Plant and then Rocha with court cases, leading first to Plant's leaving the hotel for the United States and then to Rocha's absconding from the hotel in 1956 to avoid a judgment against him. At this point the hotel was taken over by the Mexican government, which closed and partly demolished it in 1964.^[3]

The Margarita[edit]

The Margarita is claimed to have been invented in several different places and at several different times. One claim is that it was invented at the Hotel Riviera del Pacífico for Marjorie King Plant at the time when she was the joint owner.^[4] Other versions refer to Marjorie King, an actress, and some move the location from Ensenada to Tijuana. Margarita is a Spanish version of the name Marjorie.

According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, the Margarita was invented in the 1940s by Carlos Daniel 'Danny' Herrera.^[5]^[6]

Hotel Y Casino Ensenada

Current status[edit]

Partly rebuilt in 1978, the hotel was reopened as the Centro Social, Cívico y Cultural de Ensenada.^[3] This includes an open-air theater, a historical museum, and a number of rooms used for a variety of functions.

References[edit]

^Jack Dempsey's Hotel in Baja California: The Playa EnsenadaThe Journal of San Diego History (May 2018); retrieved June 3, 2020
^'Historia y Mistérios del ex Hotel Riviera del Pacífico' Sistema Abierto de Educación Tecnológica Industrial (September 6, 2011); retrieved June 9, 2020 In Spanish
^ ^a^bMaria Eugenia Bonifaz de Novelo, 'The Hotel Riviera del Pacífico,' San Diego Historical Society Quarterly Spring 1983
^Plaque in gardens of the hotel
^LOVE, SYD (2 May 1991). 'Margarita Memories From Baja : Recollections: During its glory years in the 1940s, Rancho La Gloria owner Danny Herrera came up with a blend that is still popular' – via LA Times.
^CHAVEZ, PAUL (14 May 1992). 'Danny Herrera, Inventor of Margarita, Dies at Age 90' – via LA Times.

Coordinates: 31°51′31″N116°37′09″W / 31.8585°N 116.6193°W

Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hotel_Riviera_del_Pacífico&oldid=984364169'

By Greg Niemann

When I was a kid, I was in awe over the large white castle on the beach, a hybrid of Spanish and Moorish style with tile roof and wondrous gardens. It was a strong focal point in Ensenada, dwarfing all other buildings in the post-World War II Baja village by the sea. Like most imposing structures, it was filled with history and intrigue.

Our family used to camp down the beach a ways and I tried to imagine what the fancy hotel might look like inside. It had to be for rich people, as I remember hearing that Hollywood stars used to frequent the place. I’d look for movie stars when we’d drive by, but I didn’t see any. Known today simply as the Riviera, the Hotel Playa Ensenada (as it was known when it opened on October 31, 1930) was an elegant hotel with a gambling casino said to rival that of Monte Carlo’s. To help attract the Hollywood and international set to Ensenada, world famous heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey, one of the most recognizable names on the planet at the time, became part of the developing corporation. A huge villa was built for Dempsey, just to the south of the main building. It is rumored that gangster Al Capone was one of the corporation’s silent partners.

Work had begun on the Riviera in 1928, two years before the opening, by James L. Miller, contractor. The elaborate building’s architect was Gordon E. Mayer. And the inspiration was purely Hearst Castle, a similar-looking structure built earlier about 400 or so miles up the coast.

Big Names In Ensenada

During the early-1930s, the hotel flourished, and not only did the Hollywood crowd come but royalty as well. The opening act in the hotel ballroom was Bing Crosby who was accompanied by the Xavier Cugat Orchestra.

A local Latin singer named Margarita Cansino, who would later find fame in Hollywood as Rita Hayworth, sang and danced at the Hotel Playa Ensenada. She and her father also entertained the tourists at the Agua Caliente Casino in Tijuana.

When prohibition was finally repealed in the United States in 1933, attendance started waning as fun-seekers no longer had to leave the country. But the final death knell came five years after t