The Davenport Hotel (Spokane, Washington)

The Davenport Hotel is a historic hotel located in downtown Spokane, Washington, United States. Originally a successful high-end restaurant, it is one of the possible places where the first Crab Louis (reportedly named after Louis Davenport) was created and served. The hotel was designed by architect Kirtland Cutter, and built in 1914 for $2 million ($ in dollars). It was built with an opulent lobby, and new amenities for the time such as air conditioning, a central vacuum system, pipe organ, and dividing doors in the ballrooms. Commissioned by a group of Spokane businessmen to have a place to host and entertain their guests, the hotel is named after Louis Davenport, an influential businessman, the first proprietor and overseer of the project.

The hotel underwent expansions in 1917 and 1929 and in 1925, it became the broadcast studio for the newly relocated KHQ radio station. Davenport bought out all other interests in the hotel and became sole owner of the property in 1928 and owned the hotel until 1945, when he sold the hotel. After changing hands many times, the hotel was remodeled and re-positioned as a motel in the early 1960s. After another change in ownership in 1967 and their subsequent bankruptcy, the hotel was foreclosed on and the property slowly fell into disrepair. After several attempts at renovation by various groups, the property was facing demolition by the mid 1980s. In 2002, the hotel was bought for $6.5 million and completely restored in a $38 million ($ in dollars) renovation by developers Walt and Karen Worthy, reopening on July 15, 2002. The Davenport Hotel has 284 guest rooms and is rated as a Four-Diamond hotel by the American Automobile Association and as a 5-star hotel by the Northstar Travel Group. The hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and today it operates under the name The Historic Davenport Hotel within The Davenport Hotel Collection

History

Restaurant years

Lewellyn "Louis" Davenport came to Spokane Falls, Washington Territory, in the spring of 1889 at the age of 20. He had been a clerk in San Francisco and came up to Spokane to work the summer in his uncle's "Pride of Spokane Restaurant." The summer of 1889 was fateful for Spokane and for Louis Davenport. In August, a fire tore through the infant metropolis, turning 32 square blocks of civilization to ashes. Young Davenport salvaged what he could from the rubble, bought a tent, and opened "Davenport's Waffle Foundry." Davenport's restaurant is one of the possible places where the first Crab Louis (reportedly named after Louis Davenport) was created and served.[6] Spokane rebuilt quickly after the big fire. Washington became a state that winter and Spokane dropped the Falls from its name. With timber, mining, agriculture and the railroad pouring money and people into the region, the city of Spokane was in the middle of it all and poised to become one of the great cities of the West.

Davenport recognized his opportunity and leased a brick building on the North-east corner of Sprague Avenue and Post Street the next year. He expanded his culinary offerings to nearly 100 items. Within a few years, Davenport's Restaurant was described by a critic as "the finest thing of the kind in the country." Business was so good, Davenport expanded into an adjoining building within a decade. He hired up-and-coming architect, Kirtland Cutter, to make the two buildings appear as one in 1904. Cutter offered a Mission Revival style theme. The white stucco walls and green tile roofs stood in marked contrast to every other building downtown.[7] This remodel added the finest ballroom in the West on the second floor, the Hall of the Doges.

Construction of the hotel

The Davenport Hotel was neither Louis Davenport's idea nor was it built with his money. Instead, Cutter and his firm, Cutter & Malmgren and Davenport were chosen by a group of leading Spokane businessmen, who thought the growing city required a large, grand hotel in which to board and entertain their guests. Leveraging Davenport's already strong reputation, the Davenport Hotel Company was formed in 1912 and preparation of the site began that year. The hotel tower went up in eight months in 1913, using horse carts, steam jacks and hand tools. Not a single worker was seriously injured or killed — a rarity for the time.

In the design, Cutter was instructed to make sure "no more money than necessary was squandered on exterior ornament", which resulted in a building with a relatively simple exterior with strategically placed ornamentation but an extremely extravagant interior.[4] Built lavishly in the Renaissance Revival and Spanish Revival style, the 406-room Davenport Hotel cost two million dollars to complete and included new technologies at the time of its opening in September 1914, such as chilled water, elevators, and air cooling.[4] Cutter and Davenport shopped the world for ideas and furnishings for their new hotel.[7] Cutter, Karl G. Malmgren as well as the firm's superintendent of construction on the project, Gustav Albin Pehrson, designed the space drawing inspiration from the great architects of France, England and Spain and decorated the interior with luxurious appointments with fine art and tables dressed in

Lobby

The ornate hotel lobby has been referred to as "Spokane's living room",[11] and in a 1921 edition of The Architect and Engineer the lobby was applauded by the author stating, there are "few if any finer lobbies in America".[4][12] The first fire in the lobby fireplace was lit in September 1914 by Kirtland Cutter. Hotel proprietor Louis Davenport decreed that as a symbol of hospitality. Originally wood-burning, the fireplace now burns natural gas. The fireplace is kept burning year-round, as a symbol of hospitality and still following Mr. Davenport's request. The painting above the fireplace depicts the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María - the ships Christopher Columbus used to discover the New World in 1492. Architecturally, the hotel has elements of Italy, France, England, Spain, and Imperial Russia.[7]

The lobby is inspired by the

Hotel years

The hotel was so successful that a 53-room addition was constructed in 1917, followed by an eleven-story addition on the south side in 1929, containing 80 more rooms.[10]

The Davenport Hotel was home to one of the Pacific Northwest's earliest commercial radio stations. KHQ, which signed on the air in Seattle in late February 1922,[13] was relocated to Spokane in September 1925,[14] and went on the air from the Davenport on October 30 of that year.[15][16] From its tower on the roof of the hotel, KHQ broadcast the first voices many people pulled from the air across the vast expanses of the Inland Northwest. KHQ featured many popular local bands, including Brill's Orchestra, led by cellist Leonardo Brill; his band, which was heard on radio on numerous occasions, performed for KHQ during the station's debut program.[15]

Restoration and reopening

In March 2000, local entrepreneurs Walt & Karen Worthy purchased the entire city block for $6.5 million, then spent two years and $38 million ($ in dollars) of their own money to restore The Davenport. The hotel's public spaces and ballrooms were restored to their original appearance, with real gold leaf around the fireplace.[7] The hotel's guest floors were stripped to bare concrete and rebuilt, with fresh wiring, plumbing, drywall, furniture and fixtures. Salvaging the Hall of Doges from the old structure required the removal of the whole ballroom intact by crane and placing it on the second floor of the hotel's new east addition just outside the Grand Pennington ballroom.

The Davenport Hotel reopened on July 15, 2002, and celebrated its grand reopening from September 13–15, 2002,[20] with the ringing of a ship's bell eight times signaling a change of the watch.

Notable guests and residents

The hotel has had many famous guests since it opened 111 years ago in 1914. The list of distinguished guests that have visited the hotel include many heads and former heads of state, singers and musicians, actors and actresses, artists, and other people that reached a level of fame. The hotel has hosted at least ten presidents (Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon) one emperor, and one queen (Marie of Romania). Of the presidents, Taft, who had visited more than once, was particularly fond of the hotel and once told Louis Davenport, "This is home. This is the best hotel I was ever in."[25]

Famous actors that have stayed at the hotel include Mary Pickford, Clark Gable, Steve McQueen, Rory Calhoun, John Carradine, Vincent Price, Raymond Burr, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Betty White, Rock Hudson, Jimmy Durante, Bob Barker, Ellen Drew, John Howard, Kay Francis, Ethel Barrymore, David Warfield, Jack Benny, Glenn Ford, Lynn Fontanne, Jim Nabors, Tom and Dick Smothers, and Cecil B. DeMille.[25] Some of the famous musicians that have visited include John Philip Sousa, Harry Belafonte, Will Rogers, Victor Borge, Harry James, Les Brown, Lawrence Welk, Eddy Arnold, Johnny Cash, Ricky Nelson, Nat King Cole, Liberace, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Harry Lauder, The Lennon Sisters, The Kingston Trio, Peggy Lee, and Woody Guthrie. Guthrie, a folk singer, reportedly said of the hotel, "this is an awful nice hotel...just a little too fascisti to satisfy my higher ideals" before going out and playing his guitar on the streets.[25]

Other notables include Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh. Poet Vachel Lindsay lived in room #1129 from 1924 until 1929, and was often seen writing in front of the lobby fireplace.[26][25] There is even a myth that Mahatma Gandhi stayed at the hotel, though in fact he never visited the US.[27]

In literature

In literature, the Davenport Hotel is the setting for an interview of a suspect by private investigator, Sam Spade in the 1930 novel, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.[25] Hammett was also a real life visitor of the hotel.

address	10 South Post Street Spokane, Washington, Washington, U.S.
coordinates	47.65681°N, -117.42435°W
map caption	Location within downtown Spokane
hotel chain	Autograph Collection Hotels
opening date	1914
architect	Kirtland Kelsey Cutter
owner	KSL Capital Partners
number of rooms	284
number of suites	37
number of restaurants	2
floor count	14
height	157 ft
website	davenporthotelcollection.com
footnotes	‡R2R‡

The Davenport Hotel (Spokane, Washington)

History

Restaurant years

Construction of the hotel

Lobby

Hotel years

Restoration and reopening

Facilities

Notable guests and residents

In literature

Gallery

External links

Further reading

References

Lobby