Stakes high for Padre Hotel
PADRE: Hotel could provide jobs for 220 people
Last Updated Monday, Oct 12 2009 11:00 AM
112 rooms
A Bachelorette suite on the eighth floor called The Farmer's Daughter.
A luxury suite on the eighth floor called the Oil Baron.
Brimstone, a San Francisco-style bar.
Prospect, a lounge with a dance floor and music.
Belvedere, a steak and chop lunch and dinner house.
Farmacy, a grab-and-go coffee shop.
Prairie Fire, an open-air deck on the second floor with a fireplace, misters and a view of downtown.
Board Room, a second-floor meeting room for receptions and business meetings.
Gym
Valet parking
Spa packages
Images
Casey Christie / The Californian There's a whole lot of work going on at the historic downtown Padre Hotel trying to complete things for the re-opening in December.
Casey Christie / The Californian Workers are busy on the first floor of the downtown historic Padre Hotel.
Casey Christie / The Californian A view from the window looking out of an eighth floor room in the Padre Hotel, looking north on H Street.
Casey Christie / The Californian Californian columnist Herb Benham, checks out the incredible view from a room in the upper section of the Padre Hotel.
Casey Christie / The Californian Steve Uricchio shows off one of the larger rooms on the upper floors of the historic downtown Padre Hotel during its continued restoration.
Casey Christie / The Californian The historic downtown Bakersfield Padre Hotel restoration continues on H Street.
The new Padre Hotel could be the biggest thing to hit downtown since the earthquake. If it opens. If it works.
If the owners are able to saddle and ride this beast.
But after touring the Padre recently with one of its three owners, I've got to say the new look and the ambitious plan have made a believer out of me.
Brett Miller and his buddies have big plans. If you like somebody who rolls the dice, you'll love this group, which, Miller says, has $18 million in the Padre already. Whatever the figure, if the Padre doesn't fly, the landscape will be strewn with the wreckage of several family fortunes along with the heads of a couple of bank vice presidents.
The plans include not only 112 hotel rooms but a San Francisco-style bar called Brimstone, a lounge with a dance floor and music called Prospect, an elegant lunch and dinner house named Belvedere, and a coffee shop named Farmacy.
The second floor has an outdoor deck called Prairie Fire, with a bar, a fireplace and misters. The deck overlooks the Fox Theater. The eighth floor has a bachelorette suite along with an oilman's suite for the big hitters.
I found myself nodding as Miller showed me the inside of the three-quarter-finished building. It was hard not to pull out the pom poms and start cheerleading. The first floor is impressive. One of the more arresting visuals is being able to see each of the four restaurant/bars downstairs from any of the other venues. The restaurants are separated by glass for noise control.
Keeping all this straight sounds like a circus act. Miller has hired Steve Uricchio of the Uricchio restaurant family to be the hospitality manager. If anybody has the charisma or the sheer maniacal energy to keep track of this many moving parts, Uricchio does.
Since leaving Bakersfield in 2003 for Las Vegas, Uricchio (he sold his interest in Uricchio's years ago) has opened 32 restaurants for various casinos.
In his last job with Boyd Gaming, he managed 620 employees and prepared 4,000 meals a day in 10 restaurants.
"Compared to what I've been doing, this seems like a piece of cake," Uricchio said.
Uricchio, along with his father, Nick, was involved in the downtown renaissance 14 years ago when they opened the family restaurant. Downtown went from having about 10 restaurants to more than 30.
In the last couple of years, downtown has settled into something of a funk (notable exceptions include Metro Galleries, Spotlight Theatre, Sequoia Sandwich, the new Goose Loonies and Mama Roomba's, among others).
The recession and the subprime meltdown haven't helped. Nor have the fights, the stabbings and a couple of homicides. People may want to experience downtown, but they want to live, too.
If the Padre owners can pull this off (the soft opening date is Dec. 15) and manage the place, don't be surprised if the light fixtures start jiggling and the wine glasses jump off the shelf as a seismic shift takes place downtown.
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For years, the Padre has been an eyesore. The hotel shut down eons ago and besides a barbershop, a coffee shop, a print shop and a jewelry store on the bottom floor, it's basically been sitting there.
I go back and forth on the Padre architecture. One day, it glows. Another, it simmers. The Padre, built in 1928, looks better when backlit by a sunset at the end of a day well spent.
If you want to be generous, you can talk about the Padre "being a fine example of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture," but really, the magic, if any, has always lay inside its spacious lobby with the large arched windows and 20-foot-high ceilings.
I slept through the glory days of the Padre Hotel. Milton "Spartacus" Miller bought it in 1954 and installed a girl in a swing over the bar and had a musician named Ernie Kelly playing the piano.
Miller, who made Don Quixote look grounded, eventually was forced by the city to shut down several floors because he refused to put in fire doors and overhead sprinklers. In protest, Miller put a "mock missile" on the roof of the hotel and pointed it toward City Hall.
Last month the new owners of the Padre were installing sprinklers, alarms, glass and a smoke evacuation system -- the city demanded more than 30 years ago in order to bring the Padre up to code.
Spartacus Miller refused and was forced to close floors three though eight. The spat with the city and his stubbornness cost the hotel the chance of ever being viable.
"We spent $1.1 million on life safety systems," said Brett Miller. "This makes the building a safer place and I sleep better at night."
My only experience with the Padre was breakfast with a group of retired local businessmen who called themselves the Godfathers. The Godfathers told good stories -- about things like the time Miller turned a flock of turkeys loose in City Council chambers -- and were the most frugal bunch imaginable.
The Godfathers kept their own jars of grape jelly in the fridge at the Padre Coffee Shop, and would draw straws for the check, which for eight people, might reach $14.
The coffee shop closed, the Padre went through a couple of owners, and now it's owned by Brett Miller (no relation to Spartacus), a Hanford native, and two friends of his, Graham Downes, an architect and former rugby player from South Africa and Dave Gash, a contractor.
"Everybody is pitching in, surrendering their fees, so we can get this thing done," Miller said.
Yes, a lot of ifs surround this place.
Add this to the list: If the the Padre can become the cultural force it intends to be, 220 people in this brutal economy could find jobs.
That's good news -- and not just for downtown.
These are the opinions of Herb Benham, not necessarily The Californian's.
