Italian immigrant Domenico Ghirardelli arrived in San Francisco during the Gold Rush and opened a small confectionery shop in 1852, selling chocolate to gold miners. His sons took over the growing business in 1892 and moved production the following year into the old Pioneer Woolen Mill on the city’s northern waterfront, a complex the family expanded and renovated with architect William Mooser. The factory survived the 1906 earthquake and kept producing chocolate on-site for decades, becoming famous enough that the Ghirardelli family installed the now-iconic rooftop sign in 1923.
The chocolate company relocated its manufacturing to San Leandro in the 1960s, leaving behind a single retail shop to carry the name at what became Ghirardelli Square, since designated both a San Francisco landmark and a National Historic Place. Fairmont opened a private residence club within the restored Chocolate, Mustard, Cocoa, and Woolen Mill buildings in 2008, its exposed brick and timber-frame construction still visible throughout the property’s roughly fifty one-, two-, and three-bedroom residences.