Antique & Vintage Postcards

Iron-bound doors worthy of a Castilian monastery guard a vine-draped passageway where dappled light filters through a rustic ramada heavy with grapevines — a scene that made the Mission Inn in Riverside, California, one of the most photographed and romanticized destinations in the American West. Frank's beloved Mission Inn complex, built up over decades by the Miller family beginning in the 1870s, was an ever-expanding fantasia of Spanish, Moorish, and Mission Revival architecture that hosted presidents, celebrities, and honeymooners. This hand-colored view — No. 10 in the inn's own published series — focuses on the ramada walkway, its overhead trellis dripping with flowering vines, flanked by lush tropical plantings and terminating at a decorative fountain glimpsed in the distance. The arched, iron-grilled doors opening from rough stone walls are described on the reverse as "typical of old Castile… as in Moorish Spain." Published by the Mission Inn itself and printed by the Albertype Co. of Brooklyn, this is a pristine, unused example from the inn's carefully curated souvenir series, sought by both Mission Inn collectors and California architecture enthusiasts alike.