San Carlos Hotel

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177-foot, 16-story Renaissance-revival hotel completed in 1927. Designed by Henry Ives Cobb, it is clad in tan brick above a rusticated limestone ground floor with a grey granite water table. The building has a central light well above the entrance, flanked by two symmetrical wings, with an extra, 6-story section at the west end. The modernized entrance has glass-and-metal doors, sidelights, and transom, below a stainless-steel canopy. The rusticated stone cladding extends up to the 2nd floor at the entry. At both the ground floor and upper floors, the wings have a bay of single-windows toward the middle and a bay of paired windows at the ends. The west extension has two bays of double-windows on its five upper floors, and the ground floor has a plate-glass storefront show-window and a set of metal-and-glass double-doors. The extension is capped at the 6th floor by a modest dentiled cornice.

The 2nd floor at the main section has wide stone surrounds framing the single-windows, lined by rope colonnettes, and has decorative volutes on top. At the 3rd floor a pair of projecting flagpoles are mounted just outside the light well. The outer bay of the wings sets back above the 10th floor, with the inner bay rising one more floor with a stone surround at the window (topped by an ornamental stone panel) and capped by a triangular gable with red tile roofing. Farther back, there is a flat setback as the wings end above the 12th floor.

The rear wall of the light well has two bays of paired windows, and the inward-facing sidewalls both have a bay of single-windows toward the front, and a bay of smaller bathrooms windows at the back. Above the tops of the wings, the full recessed facade has two more bays (of either single- or double-windows) on either side of the two center bays. The 15th floor is topped by a dentiled band course, and the 16th floor has a sloping red tile roof on the west end. In the middle there is a penthouse level with a single-window in a stone field, topped by a rounded pediment. To the left is a small section with a single-window, and to the right a recessed section with another single-window. Above the left section is a higher, more recessed penthouse section with three small windows. All of these areas are topped by sloped, red tile roofs. Rising above the middle window is a small brick tower housing mechanical equipment; it has three tall but narrow window openings on its north and south faces (the middle one the tallest), four similar openings on the west face, and ends in a tiled gable roof.

The hotel contains 147 guest rooms. The ground floor of the west section is occupied by Spice Symphony restaurant.

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