Friends of Mission Inn continues efforts in Riverside despite setback

I’m standing on a sidewalk outside the 20th century Mission Inn, gazing at piece of marble dating to the 17th century.

It’s part of the hotel facade because of the collecting mania of Mission Inn founder Frank Miller. The escutcheon — said to represent the coat of arms of a royal family in Barcelona, Spain — features a Spanish crown, a bell and a falcon. It’s believed to have been carved circa 1650.

Miller bought the vertical carving, in two pieces, at auction and installed it at his Riverside hotel around 1920. It’s among hundreds of pieces of art or antiquities that lent an Old World atmosphere to the hotel in the hands of Miller, who died in 1935.

Miller built the hotel from 1903 to 1931 in homage to California’s Catholic missions and to European castles. If any gullible visitor gushed that the Mission Inn was itself ancient, Miller didn’t burst their bubble.

“He would pretend there was actual history to it,” Glenn Scalise says with a chuckle.

Scalise is president of Friends of the Mission Inn. For nearly six decades, the nonprofit has stepped in to safeguard elements at the hotel that might otherwise have been lost, tossed or left to rot.

This spring, Friends hired a specialist to clean and repair the escutcheon. It’s on the hotel’s Orange Street side, on the facade of what’s called the Cloister Wing. I’ll admit I’d never noticed the marble carving, but now it gleams in sharp relief to its surroundings.

The marble was in poor shape in part because of an ill-considered fix long in the past.

Above the escutcheon, a copper strip — installed to deflect rainwater — had for years dribbled rusty water onto the marble, turning sections green and black and undermining its structural integrity.

The escutcheon was also found to have been fastened to the wall by six small wooden wedges. Says restorer Jeff Crumbaker: “It simply could have fallen off.”

Crumbaker removed the stains with chemicals and light sandblasting, filled cracks, applied sealant and, in a phrase I am unlikely to ever type again in my career, affixed the escutcheon to the facade with hard resin.

Also, the troublesome copper strip was replaced by an aluminum awning with a rubber seal.

Funded by Friends, the job cost $10,000, a price that Scalise calls “a bargain.” Crumbaker, owner of the Riverside-based company The Patrician Group, confides dryly that he gave Friends a break: “I do a lot of work in Beverly Hills. They have a different pricing structure.”

How does Friends, which has 154 members, raise money for projects like this? Membership dues, silent auctions, book sales, silent film presentations and investments, says Vice President Homa Aimen.

“In the past five years, Friends has put in $70,000,” Scalise says. “We want to be more aggressive this year. We try to do one or two projects a year. We’re hoping to do three this year.”

The next, he says, may be the twin cannons near the hotel’s main entrance whose wooden carriages need repairs.

Our conversation is taking place on May 13. Seven days later, supporters of the Mission Inn are reeling.

Two paintings, “California Alps” by William Keith and “Charge Up San Juan Hill” by Vasili Vereshchagin, were removed from the Mission Inn on behalf of hotel owner Kelly Roberts on May 20. Her sale of the hotel to the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation, for more than $33 million, became official May 28.

A community furor erupted. The two paintings had been part of the hotel, through multiple changes of ownership, since the 1910s. A Roberts attorney said the art had personal meaning to the Roberts family and was excluded from the sale.

The paintings were among 254 items identified as “cultural resources” as far back as 1985, when taxpayers owned the Mission Inn via the city’s Redevelopment Agency.

That some of those resources exist today is thanks to Friends of the Mission Inn.

Friends formed in June 1969 to protect the hotel’s art and antiquities, “most of which were stored in the hotel’s damp basement,” according to a 2020 article by Emily McEwen for the Riverside Historical Society.

“Within one year,” McEwen wrote, “the Friends boasted over 800 members and were a constant presence in the hotel, restoring furniture, hosting fundraisers and redecorating rooms to increase occupancy.”

In that era, the Mission Inn had a revolving door of owners who either didn’t care about the history or were desperate for cash flow to keep the doors open. City Hall bought the hotel in 1976, sold it in 1985 and facilitated its sale in 1992 to Duane Roberts, after which it again became the jewel of downtown.

Over the decades, Friends has recovered art and furniture that was put up for sale at auction or spirited away by light-fingered visitors. Friends has cleaned and restored fountains, plaques, stained glass windows, chapel altars, statues, a pipe organ, a Buddha figure and more.

That reflects the Mission Inn’s unique status. Nobody raises funds to help Travelodge clean its generic art or to reupholster Marriott’s chairs. But the Mission Inn is a city, state and national landmark and a tourist attraction.

“It’s a historic hotel. It’s very expensive to operate,” Scalise explains. “If we relied on the hotel to take care of the art and antiquities, I don’t think it would ever happen.”

A week after the paintings leave the hotel, Scalise and I speak again. While upbeat as a general rule, he is perturbed by the loss of “California Alps” and “Charge Up San Juan Hill.”

Friends had funded restoration and cleaning of each painting: “Alps” in 1985, at a cost of $13,000, and “Charge” a decade later for $10,000. Each had decades of accumulated dust and cigarette smoke.

Scalise says Friends had assumed the paintings were at the hotel permanently. Same with certain other items Friends has invested care into and whose whereabouts are unknown. Among them: the 1876 centennial Steinway piano, repaired in 2009, and the paintings “Portrait of Madame Korevo” and “Arch Beach,” restored from 1982 to 1985.

But Scalise takes the long view.

“It doesn’t really change our mission. We feel very confident with the new ownership that the items will be protected,” he tells me.

Is there a sense of betrayal? More “a sense of loss,” Scalise says.

“We won’t be surprised if the paintings show up for sale,” Scalise adds. “We would love to purchase them back.”

David Allen, a friend to all, writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook or Instagram, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.

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This story was originally published July 12, 2026 at 7:40 AM.