Chimney Sweep

The wild story of how the Fairmont gingerbread home will get made

Just as the fog settles over San Francisco in July and the cable cars are overcrowded with tourists, the ovens in the kitchen of the Fairmont Hotel go on and the staff is busy.

They bake gingerbread cookies and mark the beginning of a five-month attempt to build a gingerbread house with the stature and complexity of a Victorian Queen Annes.

This year’s house plan called for 8,000 gingerbread cookies made from a typical recipe that includes flour, sugar, molasses, spices and butter. These were produced in summer and autumn and stored in a temperature-controlled room until construction began in November.

“It gets stale, but the stale the gingerbread, the harder the brick and the more stable the house,” says Emma Curtis, the hotel’s kitchen and restaurant manager. “It still smells good. You see people walking through the lobby and sniffing it.

“We don’t promote it, but we see people eating it too. The adults are the worst.”

Like the Christmas tree in Union Square and the wreaths in the windows of Macy’s, the Fairmont gingerbread house – now in its 11th year – has become a lovable San Francisco vacation tradition. It is enjoyed by hotel guests and locals who go on trips to the two-story House of Sweets annually while their children explore the sweet delicacies while sipping sparkling wine in the lobby.

The 2019 creation is the largest yet at 25 feet high and 45 feet wide; It has a private dining area that can seat up to 10 people. The exterior is adorned with twinkling lights, swirls of royal frosting, and a mix of candy. Lollipops grow in the planters, gummy candies frame the arched windows, and marshmallow sugar peeps in the shape of trees, reindeer, gingerbread and snowmen are used everywhere.

“Candy is ordered months in advance,” says Curtis. “We bought the last 15 boxes of peeps trees from Peeps. We’ll keep peeps in business.”

A total of 1,900 pounds of candy were used and everything was put together with 3,500 pounds of royal icing.

A team of six has spent more than 1,200 hours assembling this year’s house. Among them was Larry Walton who worked on the last 10 houses. Walton works as a painter for the hotel for most of the year, but in the fall he changes to the role of senior engineer at the gingerbread house, taking responsibility for the lights and animation display.

This year the main room features a scene in front of Santa’s house with letters flowing out of a mailbox. The letters were written to Santa Claus by the children of the hotel staff. One elf plays peak-a-boo, jumping in and out through a hole in the ground, and another elf climbs a ladder to the top of a reindeer barn.

Walton is handy and uses small motors made from everyday objects to set the figures and lawn ornaments in motion. He used a car seat motor to kick Santa’s legs out of the chimney.

On the gingerbread roof, Walton has put together a scene from Lombard Street, which is surrounded by Victorian houses, themed after “A Christmas Carol”. A cable car goes down the crooked road and the trees are shrouded in lights.

“I spent a day and a half putting all the Christmas lights on the miniature houses,” he says. “You have to cut the wires in half and re-solder.”

Walton says the team has learned from its mistakes over the years and is constantly improving the design.

The kitchen staff once tried adding vinegar to the icing because they heard the recipe would last longer. “You didn’t love the result”
he said. “It changed the smell.”

Another year a ceiling painted with chocolate melted and dripped on the heads of the visitors. Once a smoke machine placed in the chimney produced moisture and made the floor slippery.

“I kind of know what works and what doesn’t, and I can say, ‘Hey, we have to do this because I went through it,'” said Walton. “We used to hang gingerbread on the ceiling. And pieces cracked and fell on people.”

Amy Graff is a digital editor for SFGATE. Email: agraff@sfgate.com.

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