Blue Heron - Botanical Gardens - Wednesday, May 14th, 2025
Changes have come for the exclusive and alluring Claremont Resort & Club in Berkeley
By Silas Valentino, Travel Editor May 14, 2025 - SFGATE
The Claremont Resort & Club, a citadel in the Berkeley Hills, was buzzing on a recent Friday afternoon. A bridal photoshoot capitalized on the ornate interior while, at the other end of the main floor, a banquet hall hosted a celebration of life. Elsewhere, a company ran a team-bonding exercise on a grassy lawn near the valet station that was fueled by a pair of bartenders.
Hotel guests and club members intermixed, either in one of the three on-site eateries or along the edge of the newly renovated swimming pool — perhaps the most famous pool in the Bay Area since providing the backdrop of the notorious “run-by fruiting” incident in “Mrs. Doubtfire.”
Life imitates art: More than 30 years after the film, the resort’s newest owner has added a seasonal mobile bar that’s parked a few feet from where the movie production installed a faux bar to shoot the iconic scene. The tiny factual error is now corrected. The new owners also modified a nearby storage room into a food counter called the Bayview Terrace that serves lobster rolls and wild mushroom flatbread to its decadent and well-heeled visitors.
Along with a fresh coat of paint on the palatial exterior — and the transformation of some tennis courts for pickleball that put the club in the middle of a battle brewing across the Bay Area — changes have come for the Claremont two years after Ohana Real Estate Investors purchased the property for over $163 million.
Per usual, curiosity ensues whenever the Claremont exchanges hands. Its ownership and management tend to turn over with the cadence of a fashion trend, at least 10 times over the last 110 years, and the outsider intrigue is simple. Even if you’ve never visited or stayed there as a guest, your eyes naturally find the milky white castle among the palm trees in the East Bay skyline. The definition of a landmark, the Claremont is further enhanced by its lavish and mostly exclusive nature.
2 years after its purchase, the Bay Area's most stately hotel has changed
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