The Fairmont Hotel is notable for its architecture by Reid & Reid and Julia Morgan and for being one of the few Nob Hill survivors of the 1906 Earthquake and Fire.

The Fairmont Hotel was conceived and financed by Tessie Fair Oelrichs, the daughter of Senator James G. Fair, who made his fortune in the Comstock silver mines. She hired James and Merrit Reid to design a six-hundred room hotel in the Italian Renaissance style. In early 1906, before the hotel had opened, Ms. Fair traded it for other property. The new owners, Herbert and Hartland Law, planned to open it in the autumn of 1906.

The 1906 Earthquake and Fire damaged the Fairmont to the point that many experts thought that it could not be salvaged. Herbert Law, determined to repair the hotel, hired New York architect Stanford White who was shot and killed a few weeks after being hired. Mr. Law then hired a young architect named Julia Morgan.