The hotel is constructed of steel, stone, concrete, wood, and glass, and is a premier example of National Park Service rustic architecture.

[2][4] The Ahwahnee was temporarily renamed the Majestic Yosemite Hotel in 2016 due to a legal dispute between the U.S. government, which owns the property, and the outgoing concessionaire, Delaware North, which claimed rights to the trademarked name.

A banquet event was planned based on a story by Washington Irving about an eighteenth-century English Christmas at the home of the Squire of Bracebridge.

[25][26][27][28][29] The new concession contract was awarded to Delaware North and required that it assume all the assets and liabilities of the previous operator and deed the real property to the National Park Service.

[30] In 2014, Delaware North lost a bid to renew its contract with the U.S. government to Yosemite Hospitality, LLC, a division of Aramark.

[31] When it had originally taken over the concessionaries in 1993, Delaware North was contractually required to purchase, at fair market value, "the assets of the previous concessionaire, including its intellectual property, at a cost of $115 million in today's dollars."

[32][33] The contract with Delaware North also required that if it were to be succeeded as concessionaire, the successor must acquire all of the assets of the previous operator at fair market value.

[6] The Ahwahnee is a 150,000-square-foot (14,000 m2) Y-shaped building[35] and has 97 hotel rooms, parlors, and suites, each accented with original Native American designs.

[10] The hotel is situated below the Royal Arches rock formation in a meadow area that previously served as a village for the native Miwoks and later as a stables complex known as Kenneyville.

The design was changed several times and at one point the hotel was to be no larger than three stories high, but eventually a more expansive layout was selected to accommodate the 100 guest rooms along with several public spaces.

Artist and interior designer Henry Lovins originally suggested a "Mayan revival" theme with Hispano-Moresque influences.

[17] However, just before opening day, the director noticed that the porte-cochère planned for the west side of the building, where the Indian room now sits, would allow exhaust fumes from automobiles to invade the premises.

A hastily designed Douglas Fir pole porte-cochère entry and parking area were erected on the east side of the hotel to correct this (the logs were replaced in the 1990s).

In 1931, the load-bearing trusses in the dining room were reinforced after it was discovered that they were barely adequate to support the snow load on the roof and potential earthquake stresses.

[35] When Prohibition was rescinded in 1933, a private dining room was converted into the El Dorado Diggins bar, evocative of the California Gold Rush period.

[16] Although the dress code for the park is usually very casual, the Ahwahnee Dining Room used to require a jacket for men, but it later relaxed that tradition.

[45] High quality kitchen appliances were installed so the hotel could compete with fine dining establishments, and the facility was specifically constructed to handle special events and functions.

Local Yosemite artist Dudley Kendall played piano in the dining room at the Ahwahnee for years and had his work displayed at the hotel.

[46] The Bracebridge Dinner is a seven-course formal gathering[47] held in the Grand Dining Room and presented as a feast given by a Renaissance-era lord.

This tradition began in 1927, the Ahwahnee's first year of operation, and was inspired by the fictional Squire Bracebridge's Yule celebration in a story from The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.

Ansel Adams retired from the event in 1973, passing it on to Eugene Fulton, who had been part of the male chorus since 1934 and musical director since 1946.

Fulton died unexpectedly on Christmas Eve in 1978 and his wife, Anna-Marie, and his daughter, Andrea, took over that year and produced the show.

[56] In 1995, the organizers of the traditional dinner accepted ticket cancellations because the park could have been shut down due to the national budget impasse.

In the script, the entire cast visit and stay in a fictionalized, comedic version of the hotel during a ski vacation to Badger Pass.

The hotel and dining room have hosted many notable figures including artists, royalty, heads of state, film and television stars, writers, business executives, and other celebrities.

[43] Examples of notable guests include heads of state Queen Elizabeth II, Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi;[60] business moguls Walt Disney and Steve Jobs; entertainers Desi Arnaz, Lucille Ball, Charlie Chaplin, Judy Garland, Leonard Nimoy, Will Rogers and William Shatner; and writer Gertrude Stein.