The late Peter Pasquale Antonelli whose memory is still held sacred by all who knew him, irrespective of race or creed, was born in Italy in May, 1854, and there educated under the excellent system for which Italy is famous. While still a young man he came to America, and fortunately for many besides himself he came direct to California. For a time he worked in the lime kiln at Cowell, but in 1890 began business for himself. At Santa Cruz he opened the Tuscano Hotel, which he conducted, as one of the best hostelries of its kind in this section, until his death, which occurred in 1910. Mr. Antonelli’s peculiar fitness for catering to the wants and wishes of others enabled him to succeed in furnishing and successfully managing an inn that so appealed to its many guests that to stop there once was an invitation, not to be lightly dismissed, to come again.
Mr. Antonelli was married in Santa Cruz to Miss Maria Garventa, a native of Italy, and she proved the greatest possible aid and inspiration to him in his ambitious and rather arduous undertaking. Since her husband’s death she has managed the hotel at 27 Front street, and it is still justly regarded as one of the oldest places in high standing. It has twenty-five rooms, and a large dining room, and its atmosphere is homelike, the service is unexcelled, and the guests are made to fell at ease and rest in comfort. Mrs. Antonelli has been in this sction for about fifty years, and she very naturally feels a keen interest in Santa Cruz town and county. In matters of national political import she is a republican, and she is a member of the Druids, to which order her husband also belonged.
Source: History of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, California : cradle of California’s history and romance : dating from the planting of the cross of Christendom upon the shores of Monterey Bay by Fr. Junipero Serra, and those intrepid adventurers who accompanied him, down to the present day. Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1925.