A Holiday must-see in San Francisco is the 2-story gingerbread house at the Fairmont Hotel on Nob Hill
As part of San Francisco Jeep Tours Holiday Lights excursions, we make a stop at the Fairmont Hotel.
The 25-foot-tall, two-story house in the Fairmont Grand Lobby will amaze you. Guests can walk through the middle of it and look in the windows to see the holiday-adorned interior rooms. A private dining space in the gingerbread house also welcomes groups of up to 10 for afternoon tea, dinner, or other special celebrations. This highly edible abode is baked and assembled each year by the hotel’s culinary and engineering teams
Tasty Fairmont San Francisco Gingerbread House Facts:
- More than 8000 baked gingerbread bricks – 12″ x 4″ each
- 1900 hundred pounds of candy
- 1,000 pounds of powdered sugar and around 150 gallons of egg whites to make the icing.
- Decorations include Peeps. Nerds ropes, candy canes, Hershey’s miniature bars, and gum drops.
There is more to see – The Fairmont’s gingerbread house sits beside a dazzling 23-foot Christmas tree in the main lobby, surrounded by a festive holiday train and other seasonal decorations. Twinkling lights and garland grace the central stairway, and smaller trees, snowmen, and scarlet poinsettias brighten mezzanine spaces. Santa swings by to collect holiday wishes from children of all ages and pose for photos.
Charitable giving also figures into the festivities. Through the Fairmont’s Trees of Hope campaign, the hotel collects donations for Make a Wish in a dedicated box near the gingerbread house.
All photos: Fairmont San Francisco
Learn more about how the 2 Story Gingerbread House is Made
From the Fairmont: INSIDE THE MAKING OF A TWO-STORY, LARGER-THAN-LIFE GINGERBREAD HOUSE
“Fairmont engineering and culinary teams begin planning the gingerbread house in July, which is also when crews begin baking 12- by 4-inch gingerbread bricks to cover the home’s wooden frame.
As the holidays draw near, builders frame the rooms, set the roof, and prepare the structure for decorations. “When it’s complete, each gingerbread brick gets placed by hand, and the pastry people pipe icing along every single grout line,” Walton says (that icing requires more than 1,000 pounds of powdered sugar and around 150 gallons of egg whites).”
Great article in SF Gate The wild story of how the Fairmont gingerbread house gets made
