❒ Price tag for icon of city’s downtown: $1.495 million

By Donna Beth Weilenman
Staff Reporter

The Union Hotel, one of the oldest surviving hotels in California, is for sale.

The historic, cream-colored hotel at 401 First St., built in 1852 when Benicia was called the “Athens of California,” has had such notable guests as Lt. Ulysses S. Grant, who went on to become the country’s president after being promoted to general of the Union Army of the Potomac during the Civil War.

Another Civil War-era general, William T. Sherman, also stayed at the Union Hotel, as did California Governor — and later President — Ronald Reagan. Legendary actor Humphrey Bogart stopped over, too.

Now the Union’s owner for the past 10 years, Lidia Woytak, of Monterey, has decided to let a new owner take the reins of the historic hotel, said Richard Bortolazzo, listing agent and owner of Coldwell Banker Solano Pacific in Benicia.

Bortolazzo said the asking price is $1,495,000.

The hotel’s popular restaurant and bar, operated by Gabriel Oviedo for the past 10 years, leases its space, and Oviedo expects his business to remain in the building, Bortolazzo said.

“Gabby does a great job with the restaurant and his bar and his custom drinks,” Bortolazzo said, pointing out that Oviedo also has introduced jazz and other entertainment to his restaurant business.

The three-story Union Hotel is far from the average hospitality place, Bortolazzo said. It’s run more like a bed and breakfast. And unlike many buildings that date from the mid-19th century, this hotel never was allowed to fall into disrepair.

“It’s the crown jewel of downtown Benicia,” Bortolazzo said.

“When you talk to the guests, they’re pleased that the rooms are rather large for a hotel, and decorated in antique, period pieces.”

In fact, the hotel’s dozen guest rooms are large enough to have Jacuzzi tubs in the spacious bathrooms, he said.

During Woytak’s ownership, she has upgraded the hotel’s interiors with an eye to its historic importance, Bortolazzo said.

In fact, the transformations became a family project, Woytak said.

Buying the hotel was her husband’s dream, so the formal name of the company — but not the actual hotel itself — identifies the endeavor as “Richard’s Dream.”

Neither she nor her husband had been in the hospitality business before purchasing the Union.

“People predicted we would fail,” she said. But the family was intrigued with Benicia, and even more captivated by the mysterious look of the old hotel.

“My whole family cherishes Benicia,” she said.

Their daughter, Adele, and Adele’s future husband, Ryan Fields, spent a year on the hotel’s renovation and refurbishing, as they hand-picked the antique furniture, repaired walls and named each room for Benicia native flowers.

Their other children, Lily and John, were students at California Maritime Academy in Vallejo when the hotel was bought, Woytak said. The two soon found themselves working while they went to school.

When the family found things about the hotel that didn’t match its historic stature, they turned back the clock, removing aluminum-bound windows and replacing them with those trimmed in wood.

When things had to be replaced, such as flooring, the Woytaks found 19th-century wood so that the new floors would be made of period materials.

They saw old photographs that indicated a corner entrance had been boarded up in the 1960s, and reopened and restored that area to its original configuration.

They removed concrete extensions and discovered the hotel’s original steps and pieces of old redwood beams. Digging around the old patio, the Woytaks found treasures — old glasses and bottles and vintage tools.

“This area of Benicia — it was the heart of town, especially D Street. It was very busy, very dynamic,” Woytak said.

When they discovered a letter from a statesman describing early events in Benicia, they donated it, she said.

Those are treasured memories, as are the many comments from guests who would tell the Woytaks how much they enjoyed their stay at the Union Hotel.

While all the rooms are air conditioned and the bathrooms are modern, Bortolazzo added, the walls are decorated with Bradbury wallpapers, from a company that specializes in historic patterns. The wall coverings were ordered from the Arsenal, the historic former military site that had brought Grant and Sherman to Benicia.

“It has exquisite stained glass windows,” he said.

Benicia was less than a decade old when the Union Hotel was built, the city having been founded in 1847. Yet before that year was over Benicia had more than a dozen buildings, a wharf and a population large enough to warrant a local government.

By 1850, the Pacific Mail and Steamship Company had moved to Benicia to become a major employer. Shortly afterward, Benicia became the first incorporated city in the new state of California — even the state’s capital from 1853 to 1854.

Its many schools and its location on the Carquinez Strait earned the city the nickname “The Athens of California.”

In the middle of that growth, the Union Hotel was built, providing upscale accommodation to those visiting the schools, the Capitol and area businesses. Woytak said she believes it’s the oldest hotel of its size in California.

Bortolazzo said the hotel is of a type that is rare in the immediate Bay Area. “You have to go to Sonoma and Napa for these,” he said.

Its rooms, restaurant, reservation system and other amenities are ready for a new owner to take over operation, Bortolazzo said, but he is hoping for a purchaser who not only has experience in the hospitality business, but who has a feel for the hotel’s special ambiance and history.

“It’s a boutique hotel in the center of downtown,” Bortolazzo said.

Woytak also hopes the hotel’s next owner is a special person.

“I hope it will be somebody interested in the history of Benicia. It’s so exciting, and people don’t know Benicia,” she said.

“I hope it is someone who appreciates history. Benicia has a truly exciting history, and it deserves attention.”