RON HENGGELER

Summer’s fog on Twin Peaks viewed from the top of the Huntington Hotel

The name of the Big 4 Restaurant comes from the four men who built the western side of the Transcontinental Railroad in the 1960’s: Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, and Collis Huntington
All four began as merchants in Sacramento during the California Gold Rush, but by building the railroad became four of the richest men in the world by the 1870’s. Once they had come into these fortunes, all four men built mansions on Nob Hill within a block radius of where the Huntington Hotel stands today.

The Huntington Hotel viewed from the bell tower of Grace Cathedral.
In the 19th century, the Tobin mansion stood where the Huntington stands today.

Across the street from Tobin’s mansion was the Crocker and Huntington mansions (site of today’s Grace Cathedral and Huntington Park).

The fireplace in the Big 4’s bar with the bronze statue “Arab on a Horse” by French sculptor Bayre

The Huntington Hotel as seen from the crow’s nest atop the Mark Hopkins Hotel

The oil portrait of Mark Hopkins that is displayed inside the front door of the Big 4 Restaurant once hung inside the Mark Hopkins mansion.
The painting survived the fire in 1906. The two French terra-cotta sphinx on each side of the front door portray Marie Antoinette and the Madame Du Barry

The Great Event, the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869.

The Turtle Fountain in Huntington Park, site of the Collis Huntington mansion that burned in April 1906

The landmark neon sign on the rooftop of the Huntington Hotel

The fleche lantern of Grace Cathedral as seen from the rooftop of the Huntington Hotel

Glimpses of the historic Huntington Hotel seen from across the street in Huntington Park

Across the street from the Huntington Hotel and Big 4 Restaurant is Masonic Auditorium with its luminous 38 by 48 foot endomosaic mural by gay artist Emile Norman (and his partner Brooks Clement) that fills the south wall of Masonic Auditorium's main lobby

The sculpture on the face of Masonic Auditorium is also by Emile Norman

The Huntington Hotel and Huntington Park in December (2008)

Dolly Fritz and Newton Cope Sr. were the former owners of the Huntington Hotel who created the Big 4 Restaurant

Famous Anthony Hail was the interior designer of the Big 4 Restaurant that opened in 1976

The banquet room of the Big 4 Restaurant

The famous 1878 Muybridge Panoramic View of San Francisco is on display in the Big 4’s banquet room.
Eadweard Muybridge is considered the Father of Cinema. A bronze statue of Muybridge stands in the San Francisco Presidio.
Muybridge, (with Leland Stanford), proved with cameras that when a horse is galloping, all four hooves leave the ground.

The Huntington Hotel seen from 1170 Sacramento

Michael Parsons, pianist for over 25 years at the famed Big 4 Restaurant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsxagVM9JXc

I’ve been doing the holiday decorating at the Big 4 Restaurant for many of the 16 years that I’ve worked there.

The Big 4 Restaurant decorated in December for the holidays

New Years Eve with 1600 balloons in the Big 4 Restaurant dining room.