The Bella Union Hotel in Los Angeles, California, constructed in 1835, is California Historical Landmark No. 656. It was effectively the last capitol building of Mexican California under Governor Pio Pico, in 1845–47, and was a center of social and political life for decades. The hotel was located at N. Main Street, on the east side, a few doors north of Commercial Street, which then ran east–west between Arcadia and Temple. The hotel was later known as the Clarendon and then as the St. Charles.
History.
The building was thought to exist very close to the original site of Yaanga, a prominent Tongva (or Kizh) village.
The one-story adobe structure was built in 1835 by "three American trappers" — William Wolfskill, Joseph Paulding and Richard Laughlin — as a home for Isaac Williams, a New England merchant who had arrived in Los Angeles in 1832.
The single-story adobe became the last capitol of Mexican Alta California when Governor Pío Pico bought it and used it as his office.
After Los Angeles was conquered and occupied by American troops in 1847, the building was used by Lt. Archibald H. Gillespie, commander of the occupying forces, for whom it later served as a barracks. After that, the building became a saloon.
By early 1850, the building was operating as the Bella Union Hotel. Later that year, it became Los Angeles County's first courthouse. 
Beginning in 1858, it was the region's transportation hub. The Overland Mail Company operated by John Butterfield (the founder of American Express) rented space for a station until it built new quarters in 1860 at Second and Spring--the present location of Mirror Building. The Wells, Fargo and Company also had their office here and Phineas Banning operated coaches to Wilmington and San Bernardino from the hotel. 
A second floor was added to the hotel in 1851, and a third in 1869.
In 1873 the hotel was renamed the Clarendon Hotel. What had previously been the Shepard cigar and fancy store and had also served as Western Union headquarters in the city, was refitted to serve as a lounge, with reading and chess tables, and a dozen antique Elizabethan chairs from the California Theater in San Francisco. A separate stairway was built to connect the upper floors to the dining room, for ladies' use only. The new dining room accommodated 100 guests. Charles Rosseau, formerly of the Union Club in San Francisco, served as chef. The bar room was carpeted with Brussels tapestry. A building at the back with 16 rooms was connected to the main hotel of 62 rooms, and the hotel thus stretched the entire length of Commercial Street from Main to Los Angeles streets. The rooms, halls, and other facilities were newly outfitted. In early 1875, the hotel started advertising as the St. Charles.
Recollections.
In 1851, when Horace Bell, the author of the seminal historical work "Reminiscences of a Ranger," first came to Los Angeles, the hotel was owned by James Brown Winston, a medical doctor, and Alpheus P. Hodges, the city's mayor. Bell's book, published in 1881, recounted how the hotel looked when he had stayed there thirty years before:
The house was a one-story flat-roofed adobe, with a corral in the rear, extending to Los Angeles street, with the usual great Spanish portal, near which stood a little frame house, one room above and one below. The lower room had the sign "Imprenta" over the door fronting on Los Angeles street, which meant that the "Star" was published therein. The room upstairs was used as a dormitory for the printers and editors. ;br ;
. . . On the north side . . . were numerous pigeon-holes, or dog-kennels. These were the rooms for the guests of the Bella Union. In rainy weather the primitive earthen floor was sometimes, and generally, rendered quite muddy the percolations from the roof above. . . . The rooms were not over 6x9 [feet] in size. Such were the ordinary dormitories of the hotel advertised as being the "best hotel south of San Francisco." If a very aristocratic guest came along, a great sacrifice was made in his favor, and he was permitted to sleep on the little billiard table. [In the bar] during that time were the most bandit, cut-throat looking set [of people] that the writer had ever set his youthful eyes upon. . . . all . . . had slung to their rear the never-failing pair of Colt's, generally with the accompaniment of the bowie knife.
Louis Roeder, later a member of the Los Angeles Common Council, who stayed at the Bella Union in 1856, recalled in 1903 that the Bella Union had been
a one-story building, with a dining-room at the rear of the bar, roofed with canvas. Adjoining was a drug store, kept by Dr. [John Strother] Griffin and Dr. Miller. Then came the private residence of Mr. [Abel] Stearns, of the Stearns ranchos, a large adobe building, between which and the Plaza were a lot of shacks, occupied by Mexicans.
Notable occasions.
a funny thing happened. Some leaders perpetrated a hoax on his honor. They raided the hotel[,] where Hodges gave them free whiskey. That night they carried on sham attacks till morning against a supposed foe. They men had made their plans carefully and carried them out so realistically that, according to Horace Bell, they completely hoodwinked the mayor, who actually thought the pueblo was being attacked by a mob of rebels.
The talking-machine demonstration over Main St. yesterday was a success. The contraption is quite a toy and very interesting. It is a question yet with the most conservative thinking whether it can ever be put to practical use.
California Historical Landmark.
California Historical Landmark Marker No. 656 at the site reads:
References and notes.
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