The two-story, walk-in, 7,750-brick gingerbread house is back to spice up San Francisco’s holiday season, and the icing on the cake is that you can book a dinner inside of it.

Nob Hill’s esteemed Fairmont San Francisco has been placing its famed life-size gingerbread house in the lobby for 13 years now, but this year the architectural gingerbread marvel has snowballed into something bigger, better, and sweeter than ever.

The 2023 incarnation boasts 7,750 real gingerbread bricks, 1,500 pounds of royal icing, and 700 pounds of candy, a task requiring so much work that the project began in July. But this feast for the eyes is now on display at the Fairmont through New Year's.

“The Fairmont San Francisco has been building the famed Gingerbread House for more than 10 years,” Fairmont Hotels spokesperson Michelle Heston tells SFist. “Each year the team takes great pride in enhancing, expanding and adding more holiday magic.”

The 2023 Fairmont gingerbread house towers two stories tall; 22 feet high and 23 feet wide. And its halls are decked with a dazzling array of Christmas lights, plus detailed accessories of edible gumdrops, gingerbread cookies, candy canes, and peppermint balls.

“The Pastry Shop spends approximately 375 hours creating the gingerbread house,” Heston says. “The Engineering Department works 520 hours to construct its framework.”

And for good measure, there are chocolate Santas, too. “For the past several years, the hotel has partnered with See’s Candies,” she explains. “They provide all the candy for the decoration of the house.”

But you will notice that some of the edible house accessories have been plucked — particularly those at kids-arm level. All of them will be replaced by hand the following morning.

“Kids and ‘kids at heart’ often find it too tempting not to take a bite or swipe a candy,” according to Heston. “Each early morning, the pastry department elves work to replace missing candies.”

Absolutely anyone can enter the life-size Fairmont gingerbread house walk-in area (which has a working train). Its 10½-foot clearance is welcoming to both Tiny Tims and the tallest of Tims.

And the gingerbread house is open to the public, located in a lobby area that does not require hotel registration. But yes, you can book a dining experience inside the “private Gingerbread” for up to eight guests. Booking information is available here, though prices are not listed. Last year it was a $300 reservation, with a $1,200 minimum on food and beverage. So you’re probably looking at $1,500-plus experience, just to manage expectations.

But again, the Fairmont gingerbread house is absolutely free to visit and enjoy for anyone, and kids of all ages. (For kids of a certain age, there is a Lobby Champagne Bar.) Plus the gingerbread house is sustainably built. “In maintaining the hotel’s commitment to the environment, each year the framework is recycled, and the edible ingredients are composted,” Heston says.

The Fairmont gingerbread house is on display daily through the New Year, from 11:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., at 950 Mason Street (at California Street). And for other festive Fairmont attractions, there’s a Holiday Tea at 1 p.m. on Thursdays through Sundays, and Santa Suites packages for holly, jolly overnighters.

Related: Life-Size Gingerbread House Back At Fairmont Hotel, And You Can Book A Dinner Inside It [SFist]

Image: Fairmont-San-Francisco.com

It’s getting real for high-stakes APEC summit talks, as President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping both touched down in San Francisco Tuesday afternoon, and they’ll meet Wednesday at the Woodside mansion Filoli, which served as a setting on the old prime-time soap opera Dynasty.

Are you feeling the APEC excitement? Me either. But it certainly seems historic that U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping both arrived in San Francisco Tuesday afternoon, according to the Chronicle's mess o’ APEC updates news tracker. Let’s examine the dignitary arrival of each, and what’s at stake for their high-profile summit Wednesday, before we got down the pop culture rabbit hole of how they’re meeting at the mansion that served as the setting for the 1980s primetime soap opera Dynasty.

President Biden arrived at SFO at 1:15 p.m. Tuesday, according to KPIX, and was greeted on the tarmac by Governor Gavin Newsom, First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and SF Mayor London Breed. According to Axios, it is believed Biden is staying at the “White House of the West,” the Fairmont Hotel, so expect security to be off the charts in Nob Hill. Biden is scheduled to remain in town until Friday, with plenty of APEC on his plate, according to a KRON4 schedule of Biden’s San Francisco visit.

For his part, Chinese President Xi arrived at SFO around 3 p.m., and was greeted by Newsom, Siebel, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. He then motorcaded straight up to SF, and Bloomberg reports he’ll be staying at the St. Regis Hotel, outside of which you can imagine there will be protests galore, none of which are ever likely to be visible to Xi.

Biden and Xi will hold their behind-closed-doors summit early Wednesday, but it won’t be in San Francisco. Instead it will be in San Mateo County’s upscale small town of Woodside. A separate Bloomberg piece has informed speculation they will discuss and announce a joint fentanyl crackdown, and the Associated Press adds the two nations might reestablish military communication.

And they will meet in Woodside at the historic mansion Filoli, according to a scoop from Voice of America. Also known as the Bourn-Roth Estate, Filoli was built by gold-mine baron William Bowers Bourn between 1915 and 1917, and it was designed by Willis Polk — the same architect who designed several mansions in San Francisco, as well as the Hobart Building and the grand Hallidie Building on Sutter Street downtown.

As mentioned, Filoli served as an exterior shot on the old TV show Dynasty (the mansion is seen in the opening credits above at the :12 and 1:29 marks). The mansion really only appeared in the credits, and hardly any of the show was ever actually filmed there — except for the three-episode 1981 pilot, whose interior and exterior shots were largely filmed at Filoli, according to the Filoli website. Filoli also served as the setting for the 2006 CBS special Dynasty Reunion: Catfights & Caviar.

Though Filoli is trying to play it off sly, as their homepage currently reads, “Filoli is closed November 13-15 while we deck the halls for the Holidays!”

Related: Gavin Newsom Throwing Big-Bucks SF Fundraising Event for Biden During APEC [SFist]

Image: SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 14: U.S. President Joe Biden (C) talks with California Governor Gavin Newson (L) and his wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom (R) after arriving at San Francisco International Airport ahead of the APEC summit on November 14, 2023 in San Francisco, California. The APEC summit is being held in San Francisco and runs through November 17. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

When 81-year-old Broadway legend Chita Rivera spoke with the San Francisco Chronicle to promote her upcoming appearances at the Fairmont, you might have expected her to talk about her work in West Side Story, Nine, or Kiss of the Spider Woman. Less expected, perhaps, was her announcement of a role that has yet been out of reach: that of a zombie on AMC drama The Walking Dead.

"Just this last week I was watching the show with my daughter, and I told her that I would be a zombie in a minute if they'd let me," Rivera told the Chron. "I'd really like to be a walker."

Rivera, who broke ground for Hispanic women in the worlds of dance and musical theatre, has more credits that we can count, including roles in the original Broadway cast of Bye, Bye Birdie, West Side Story (she was Anita before Rita Moreno was), and Chicago (she was the first Velma Kelly, the character Catherine Zeta-Jones played in the film). She's been nominated for nine Tony awards, and has won twice. She was the first Hispanic woman to be awarded a Kennedy Center Honor, and received the the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

And now she wants to play a zombie (the show calls them "walkers" or "biters")! AMC, are you listening? Surely somebody knows somebody who has connections at The Walking Dead? Because we gotta make this happen.

Rivera appears in Chita: A Legendary Celebration at the Fairmont on Sunday, February 23.

[Chron]
[Chita: A Legendary Celebration]

"In the Parking Garage of the Fairmount Hotel" by andertho.

The city's Fairmont hotel is being put on the market "after city officials failed to approve a proposal to convert some of the building to condos," reports Business Times. The hotel is currently owned by Oakland A’s owner Lew Wolff, investor Philip Maritz, and -- who knew!? --Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, the 26th richest person in the world. The plan, if you recall, was to nix the existing hotel tower, built in the 60s, to build residential spaces.The mighty hotel workers' union, however, got involved because it would've cost hotel jobs, which obviously it would have, and voted no on the thing. [Biz Times]

You'll recall how the Fairmont Hotel wants to take that semi-ugly tower at the corner of Stockton and California and build a new condo tower, demolishing the famed Tonga Room in the process? Well, now Mayor Ed Lee is rallying some support for the developers, who got stymied last fall by the Planning Commission who weren't satisfied with their Environmental Impact Report, or something, and who therefore missed their deadline for getting Planning's approval for the project.

As the Ex reports, the Fairmont's hotel business has kind of sucked of late, with "most of the hotel business [having] migrated south of Market Street near the convention center," and they'd really like to get into the condo business. But the Planning Commission split 3-3 on the approval, scuttled the development plans, and Supervisor David Chiu is still concerned that giving the green light to this will just mean 300 fewer hotel jobs. Ed is trying to bring everyone back to the negotiation table, and one of the Fairmont owners, Bill Oberndorf, an SF resident, says, "I wouldn’t spend this amount of time anywhere else," and calls this affair "a Civics project."

PREVIOUSLY: Tonga Room's Fate to Be (Possibly) Decided Today

Those of you planning on taking your visiting grandparents to the Tonga Room tonight might want to adjust your evening plans. As the Appeal pointed out last week, the First Lady is scheduled to make an appearance at the Fairmont hotel tonight for a fundraiser supporting Barbara Boxer and other local Democrats less than a week after her husband made a similar visit.

The reception and dinner are schedule for 3:30pm to 8pm, so it seems Mrs. Obama will miss out on happy hour, which is too bad because we never really know when they're finally going to shut that thing down.

[Appeal]