page_title: Draper University
section_title: Hotel Benjamin Franklin
hierarchical_section_title: Draper University / History / Hotel Benjamin Franklin
caption_attribution_description: Draper University and Hero City, San Mateo
context_page_description: Draper University, also known as Draper University of Heroes is a private, for-profit school focused on teaching entrepreneurship, located in San Mateo, California. The school has 500+ alumni from 50 countries and has launched 280+ startups that have raised $51M+ in funding from venture investors. Draper University teamed up with Arizona State University in 2013 to offer students 15 course credits for a sixteen-week Semester program. Prior to the partnership with ASU, the school was unaccredited.
context_section_description: Before Draper purchased the building in 2011, the Hotel Benjamin Franklin was a downtown San Mateo landmark since it opened on June 28, 1927. The Benjamin Franklin (named not for the American statesman but as a portmanteau of the original owners' names, A.C. Franklin and Benjamin Getz) succeeded the Peninsula Hotel, which was converted from Alvinza Hayward's mansion but had burned in 1920, as San Mateo's finest hotel. The building was designed by local architect W. H. Weeks and constructed at a cost of US$250,000 (equivalent to $3,610,000 in 2019). It is nine stories high, exceeding 90 feet (27 m) at the flagpole. Churrigueresque decorative details can be seen around windows on the second, eighth, and ninth floors.
  Notable guests at the Benjamin Franklin have included Ginger Rogers, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Friend Richardson, and Masanori Murakami.
  The Benjamin Franklin had a longstanding relationship to provide temporary housing for United Airlines employees, which began in 1946 and lasted until 2003, when the airline filed for bankruptcy. In 1955, the hotel was purchased by the Max Best family, which ran it until it was sold to Westin in 1985. Westin in turn sold it to The Empire Group in 1989. The building was largely vacant aside from a ground-level bar and restaurant after United moved out, and was part of a larger property transfer from the Lembi Group to UBS AG in 2009 after Lembi fell behind on loan payments. Draper purchased the building in 2011 with the intent to redevelop it under a mysterious project entitled "The Heart of San Mateo". Nearly a year later, Draper revealed his plans for Draper University, billed as "a boarding school for entrepreneurs that will draw students from around the globe" in a letter to city officials. Draper had also acquired a two-story property across the street, intending to use it as classroom space.
caption: Hero City is across the street from the former Hotel Benjamin Franklin
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