Windsor Cottage, view along the south flank looking west; The Hotel del Coronado is a beachfront luxury hotel in the city of Coronado, just across the San Diego Bay from San Diego, California. It is one of the few surviving examples of an American architectural genre: the wooden Victorian beach resort. It is one of the oldest and largest all-wooden buildings in California and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977. When it opened in 1888, it was the largest resort hotel in the world, and the first to utilize electrical lighting. A freshwater pipeline was run under San Diego Bay. Water tanks and gravity flow fire sprinklers were installed. Reid installed the world's first oil furnace in the new hotel. Electric lighting in a hote...