One of San Francisco’s most famous hotels has been rebranded.

The Sir Francis Drake Hotel, the Union Square icon that opened in 1928, will become the Beacon Grand. The news was first reported by the San Francisco Business Times.

The 21-story, 416-room hotel has been closed since March 2020. It was quietly purchased by the Northview Hotel Group last April; the Northview Hotel Group currently owns the Beach House in Hilton Head, the Boca Raton in Florida, Brasada Ranch in Bend, Ore., and Tapatio Springs in Boerne, Tex. The Sir Francis Drake Hotel website, which does not yet call it Beacon Grand, says it expects to reopen “soon.”

“The new concept honors very much and respects the history of the iconic hotel,” public relations manager Leah Goldstein told the Chronicle. “We are aiming for early March.”

It’s the latest Bay Area landmark to drop Drake’s name. In 1579, the English privateer and explorer reached the California coast. Although he missed the entry to San Francisco Bay, he is believed to have claimed the coastline for Queen Elizabeth I around Point Reyes (hence the name Drakes Bay). Drake was among England’s first slave traders, making repeated trips to West Africa to buy over 1,000 people to sell as property. Recently, a school in Marin County and a stretch of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard have been renamed to stop honoring Drake.

Pedestrians walk by the boarded up Sir Francis Drake Hotel on August 13, 2020 in San Francisco.

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

When the Sir Francis Drake opened in 1928, it was heralded as the West Coast’s finest hotel. Prohibition was no damper on the luxury establishment, where the booze kept flowing and Hollywood celebrities flocked for good times. It was purchased by Conrad Hilton in the late 1930s and briefly renamed the Kimpton Sir Francis Drake Hotel after it was purchased Kimpton Hotels in the 1990s.

A name change was already in the works before the hotel was sold to Northview in 2021. Kimpton told SFGATE in 2020 that they were “working with property ownership to evaluate a name change and potential rebranding of the property.”

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Barry Joule, Francis Bacon’s former craftsman and close friend, has threatened to sue Tate for failing to publicly display a number of works by the late figurative artist that he donated in 2004. According to the Guardian, Joule has waited nearly two decades for the museum to host an exhibition around the $ 37 million donation, considered to be one of the most generous gifts the London institution has ever received, and 1,200 sketches, photographs and related items Includes documents. He also said he would revoke a promised gift of an important 1936 self-portrait by Bacon and nine other paintings by the artist from the same period.

“If the result is not satisfactory. . . by October 2021 on the terms and conditions of the Tate Joule Contract, ”Joule wrote on 3. I will request the full return of this my 2004 Tate Francis Bacon Studio Donation. And so the matter can ultimately be decided in court. “

Joule says Nicholas Serota, who was the director of the Tate at the time Joule proposed the gift, assured him in 2003 that the organization would host an exhibit on the subject within three years of the gift. A 2004 gift announcement from the institution appears to support this claim, which states: “Tate will undertake to study, photograph, and catalog the collection for the next three years before displaying these items and making them available for loan . ” Tate held a major exhibition of Bacon’s works in 2008, but did not include items from Joule’s gift. In 2017, Balshaw appeared as the director of the Tate, and Joule began writing to her to have the exhibition staged.

Joule, who met Bacon in 1978 when the Irish-born artist spied on him fixing a television antenna on a neighbor’s roof and invited him for a glass of champagne, said he donated the items to the Tate because it was Bacon’s favorite museum. He also donated about eighty drawings by Bacon to the Musée Picasso, which, according to Joule, were exhibited in a major exhibition in 2005 that combined his work with that of the renowned Spanish artist and was accompanied by a catalog.

Tate said she reached out to Joule to arrange a meeting in September on the matter.

ALL PICTURES

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The British explorer Sir Francis Drake landed on a beach in what is now Point Reyes National Seashore in the spring of 1579 and claimed the land for England.

That was 28 years before an English colony was founded in the United States.

But some people in Marin County wish he had never stopped visiting, regardless of its historical significance.

As the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum after the death of George Floyd, calls for the deletion of monuments and memorials to racist figures have multiplied in the United States

Drake was a slave trader. ABC7 reported that activists want its 10 meter high statue next to the Larkspur Ferry Terminal removed and renamed Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.

Lauren Brown told a reporter that the statue “disgusted” her.

“This is about moving that tale of white supremacy,” she said.

As is to be expected, the sculptor disagrees.

“That was not a sculpture of him, but the event!” Dennis Patton from San Rafael told the broadcaster.

A petition to remove Drake statues in Plymouth and Tavistock, England has garnered 14.00 signatures, the Guardian reported.

Drake was the most famous captain of his day, a pirate hired by Queen Elizabeth to ambush and pillage the Spaniards, and a vice admiral in the fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada, a turning point in English history.

But two decades before the naval battle, he made three trips to Guinea and Sierra Leone, during which 1,200 to 1,400 Africans were enslaved. Historians estimate that another 4,000 likely died in the process.

In addition to the statue and the boulevard, Drake’s name can be found throughout Marin County and the Bay Area, including San Anselmo High School and a famous hotel in Union Square, San Francisco.

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Mike Moffitt is an SFGATE digital reporter. Email: moffitt@sfgate.com. Twitter: @Mike_at_SFGate

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