Virtual Tour of The Ahwahnee Hotel - Exterior Close Up.

The hotel construction is primarily concrete and rock with the goal of making it both durable and fire-proof. With the exception of the window shutters, all of what appears to be wood is actually concrete, including the roof trusses and beams that protrude from the walls under the balcony at the top of this photo. The concrete was cast with wood grain in the finish and is hand-painted to look like redwood. If you examine the side of the building carefully you will notice that wood grain pattern repeats itself throughout the building where they reused the same molds. Look at the "board" just above the lower window in this photo, then move up two boards and you will see that although painted different, the knot locations in the two boards are identical! Now let's go back around to the porte-cochere on the back of the hotel, and take a look inside.