DeL Monte...the hotel the golf and polo
In 1915 Sam had a new job. He was to make the Big Four operations in Monterey profitable and then sell it. He tackled the job like it was a running back from Harvard. Sam found the place to be stodgy and stuffy, two descriptions he was soon to replace. On his first tour as manager of the Pacific Improvement Company (the Big Four holding company for non-railroad assets) he met with his employee, the manager of the Hotel Del Monte. As the manager took him around Sam noticed certain things that he thought should be changed. On each suggestion the manager sniffed "that is not the way we do it here." Sam finally replied after several of these rebuffs that he was sent here to make the place profitable or sell it and the way "things were done around here" was not working. The manager was insulted and immediately went to see Mr. Crocker. Crocker back Sam and the manager quit. It was then that Sam brought in Carl Stanley. Stanley ran the hotel for 24 years and help take it back to her glory days.
