The Mission Inn's New Stewards, Welcomed and Watched

A week after Riverside learned that the Mission Inn would change hands — that the property was, in fact, for sale, and that the Yuhaaviatam of San Manuel Nation had agreed to purchase it from the Roberts family — the response from across the city has been broad and, mostly, welcoming. It has also been measured. There are open questions, and the people most invested in the property have begun asking them.

The Tribe's announcement settled some details and held others. Pyramid Global Hospitality will operate the property, the Festival of Lights will continue, gambling is not on the table, and closing is expected by the end of May. Operational specifics will be discussed after the sale closes. The Yuhaaviatam contribute more than 7,000 jobs to the Inland Empire economy and have given more than $425 million in philanthropic support through the San Manuel Cares program. Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson, in a statement Monday, said the Tribe's "deep-rooted commitment to our region positions them well to carry the Mission Inn forward."

The Greater Riverside Chambers of Commerce applauded the sale and welcomed the Tribe as "thoughtful stewards." Stephanie Standerfer, chair of the chamber's board of directors, called the Mission Inn "central to Riverside's identity and economic vitality," thanked the Roberts family for "decades of vision and care" and welcomed the transition. The chamber's president and CEO, Nicholas Adcock, said the chamber expects to continue its longtime partnerships with the Inn, including the monthly Good Morning Riverside breakfast and the Festival of Lights. "The Mission Inn has always been where community, culture, and commerce come together," Adcock told the Gazette.

At the Riverside Downtown Partnership, which manages the business improvement district that includes the Mission Inn, Executive Director Janice Penner described the property as "not only one of downtown's icons" but "a significant economic driver." "The Tribe has significant experience in managing luxury hotels, so RDP expects them to carry on the Mission Inn's tradition of first-class hospitality and celebration of heritage," Penner wrote.

She added that the Partnership would be watching closely. The annual Switch-on ceremony at the Festival of Lights "has been a joint effort of the hotel, the City, and the Chamber of Commerce," she said, "so it will be interesting to see what, if any, changes are made."

The Mission Inn Foundation, which operates a museum and educational programs from across the street after being evicted from the Inn in a 2024 lease dispute, issued a release Tuesday thanking the Roberts family and noting it had not yet met with the Yuhaaviatam. Separately, President Jennifer Gamble described the Foundation's role as continuing to tell the Mission Inn's story — one that, she wrote, began with Frank Miller in 1880 and flowed through bankruptcies and City ownership before the Roberts era. "We are ready to assist them here to preserve the heritage and promote the Mission Inn as the magical center of Riverside," Gamble wrote.

Glenn Scalise, president of the Friends of the Mission Inn — a group whose origins trace to the late 1960s, when concern about the building's future first organized civic action — wrote: "We extend our best wishes to the Roberts family and warmly welcome the new ownership and transition team."

The Old Riverside Foundation has advocated for the preservation of Riverside's historic architecture for nearly half a century. President Dave Stolte pointed to two recent transactions of similar character — the sale of the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, and El Encanto in Santa Barbara — but underscored that "the Mission Inn is truly unique." It is, he wrote, "a National Historic Landmark, the highest distinction; central to Riverside's civic identity; and has preservation needs that come with legal guardrails."

Honoring the Mission Inn's significance, Stolte said, means "keeping it alive and vital, understanding its history, not altering any character-defining features, and investing in maintenance." He pointed to the Annex across Sixth Street, which he said "is in need of significant work" and "should be adapted for a new use." Stolte expressed hope that the Yuhaaviatam would "use the many supportive resources available right here in town."

Stolte also addressed a harder question: what it means for a Native nation to take stewardship of a property built in the Mission Revival style, by an owner whose own legacy is more complicated than the architecture suggests. "The Mission Inn was built to boost a tourist-attractive romantic myth about the mission days, while its owner Frank Miller was also active in the Sherman School that — as we now understand — harmed Native culture," Stolte wrote. "Additionally, Miller was a multiculturalist and a devout pacifist. History is complicated and we look forward to seeing how all these stories can be told honestly."

Less than two months before the announcement, the City Council had established a civic achievement award in the Roberts' honor and named the couple as the inaugural recipients. In a statement posted to the Mission Inn's official Instagram account days later, Kelly Roberts shared that she had decided not only to sell the hotel but to leave California altogether. "I have decided to sell The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa and relocate to Palm Beach as I begin my next chapter," she wrote. "As California's business landscape continues to evolve, I felt this was the right time to transition and focus on new opportunities." She acknowledged her late husband's legacy and thanked the community, the team and Mission Inn family.

Kelly's daughter, Casey Beau Brown, wrote her own farewell on Instagram. Brown opened her first Casey's Cupcakes bakery inside the Mission Inn in 2009, while a junior in college, and went on to flip the switch at the Festival of Lights year after year. "After 35 unforgettable years, our family is saying goodbye to the historic Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, a place that has been so much more than a hotel to us," she wrote. "This extraordinary landmark has been the backdrop for life's most meaningful moments — weddings, birthdays, family gatherings, memorials, and the quiet in-between moments that mattered just as much." She described her late stepfather as "the heart and soul of the Mission Inn" and her mother as the keeper of its texture: the spa, the candy lane, the years of Festival of Lights detail. "I can still picture myself as a little girl running through those hallways," Brown wrote, "and now watching my own children run those same paths."

Reader letters have been arriving since the announcement, reflecting the same range of feeling.

Donald Williams wrote that his first thought was concern the new owner might convert the Inn into a casino. He was relieved to learn there were no plans to do so. "And somewhere in Riverside," he wrote, "a ghostly bellhop from 1927 just let out a sigh of relief."

Neville Abraham described the moment as "the beginning of what I believe will be a thoughtful and inspiring new chapter." He pointed to the Tribe's record on heritage stewardship and called the prospect of "a community-rooted organization" taking on the Mission Inn especially meaningful.

John Peloquin called Riverside "very fortunate" to have a buyer with such deep regional ties and hospitality experience.

Other readers wrote with questions rather than statements — about tribal events at the Inn, public art on the downtown mall, programming around tribal history, what's changing and what's not.

What the Tribe has not yet addressed is much of what readers have asked about: staff retention, renovation timelines, public-art commitments, community access and tribal programming at the Inn.

The Festival of Lights is already in transition for reasons unrelated to the sale: the Riverside Arts Council is taking over parts of the event from the City of Riverside this season. The Switch-on ceremony has historically been a joint production of the hotel, the City, and the chamber. The hotel is changing hands; the City is transferring its role to the Riverside Arts Council.

The week's response reflects something close to consensus: that Riverside is ready to welcome new ownership, hopeful about the kind of stewards the Yuhaaviatam will become, and willing to wait for the rest. It also reflects something Riverside has earned the right to ask for: that those details, when they arrive, arrive with the community in the conversation.

The sale is expected to close by the end of May. The first major test of the transition — the Festival of Lights season — arrives in November.