Grand Pacific Hotel (Seattle)

The Grand Pacific Hotel (first known as the Starr Building and sometimes the California Block[2][lower-roman 1]) is a historic building in Seattle, Washington located at 1115-1117 1st Avenue between Spring and Seneca Streets in the city's central business district. The building was designed in July 1889 and constructed in 1890 [Often incorrectly cited as 1898] during the building boom that followed the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. Though designed as an office building, the Grand Central had served as a Single room occupancy hotel nearly since its construction, with the Ye Kenilworth Inn on the upper floors during the 1890s. The hotel was refurnished and reopened in 1900 as the Grand Pacific Hotel, most likely named after the hotel of the same name in Chicago that had just recently been rebuilt. It played a role during the Yukon Gold Rush as one of many hotels that served traveling miners and also housed the offices for the Seattle Woolen Mill, an important outfitter for the Klondike.[3]

Grand Pacific Hotel
The Grand Pacific Hotel, September 2007
Grand Pacific Hotel (Seattle) is located in Seattle WA Downtown
Grand Pacific Hotel (Seattle)
Location1115-1117 1st Ave. & 1118 Post Ave, Seattle, Washington
Coordinates47°36′36″N 122°20′10″W
Built1890
ArchitectWilliam E. Boone
Architectural styleRichardsonian Romanesque
NRHP reference No.82004236[1]
Added to NRHPMay 13, 1982

The Grand Pacific Hotel is a substantial four-story brick and stone building designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style and remains a rare surviving example of its kind outside of the Pioneer Square district. The Building was designed by one of Seattle's most important 19th century architects, William E. Boone, and is one of his earliest surviving projects.[4] It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 around the same time as the adjacent Colonial Hotel and both are Seattle city landmarks. The two hotels were interconnected during restoration in the early 1980s and today are collectively known as the Colonial Grand Pacific.

History

Lewis Starr

The Grand Pacific Hotel was one of hundreds of substantial brick buildings put up in the aftermath of the Great Seattle Fire. It was constructed as the Starr Building for the estate of the late Lewis M. Starr by his widow and executrix of his estate Eliza Jane Starr.[5] Captain Lewis M. Starr was a prominent west coast mariner and businessman, who by the late 1870s was the regional contractor for the USPS and controlled the principal steamboat business in Puget Sound started by his brother George E. Starr, whose name was memorialized on the line's flagship steamer. Starr would sell the steamship business to the newly formed Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company in 1880, the payout from which he would use to purchase his numerous Seattle real estate holdings and build a mansion in Oakland, California[lower-roman 2], as well as becoming proprietor of the Ætna Iron Works in San Francisco.[6] He spent the next decade traveling up and down the coast from his home, buying and developing investment properties and businesses in Seattle as well as Portland, Oregon, where he helped establish a bank and where another one of his brothers, A. M. Starr was mayor. Lewis Starr had constructed several large buildings in downtown Seattle with more proposed before passing away in October 1887 after an extended illness.[7]

The Building

Prior to the fire this property was occupied by a 2-story brick building used by the Northwestern Cracker Company that Starr had built in about 1886. Many of his Seattle properties would be rebuilt after the great fire with buildings bearing his name. While the Starr Estate had commissioned Elmer H. Fisher to design their building (co-owned with W.P. Boyd) on Pioneer Square, for this project they hired William E. Boone, Seattle's leading architect prior to the fire, who would hold his own into the early 1900s.[4]

With the foundation and retaining walls begun in late 1889, the Starr Building was completed at a cost of $75,000 ($2.4 million in 2022 dollars) by contractor James McKendrick[8] and as reported in the summer of 1890, $12,000 in stone, $3,000 in iron 1.2 million bricks and 3,000 ft of lumber had gone into its construction.[9] Due to the dramatic slope of the property towards Elliott Bay, the four story building had two additional floors below 1st Avenue, facing Post Alley, which housed various industrial enterprises. The Galt Brothers, a tile and fireplace accessory dealer,[10] would first occupy the space in 1891 and The Seattle Woolen Mills would locate their offices in the lower floors during the Yukon Gold Rush.[2]

For most of the decade the Starr Building stood out as the only fully-built structure on the block. Though designed for office space with 66 suites on its upper floors, contemporary reports of high demand for office space in Seattle turned out to be greatly exaggerated and as early as 1891, the building's upper floors were occupied by the Ye Kenilworth Inn, a Single resident occupancy hotel operated by Minnie Hayward.[11] The Kenilworth was closed and its furnishings liquidated in November 1892[12] but was back open within a month under the proprietorship of Mrs. L.M. Kinnaman.[13] In 1897 the hotel was purchased by Denver realtor Henry Harding for his sister-in-law to run. Harding turned out to be a prolific conman wanted in several states for theft and fraud and when it was discovered that the checks he had cashed with the Dexter Horton Bank were fraudulent, the hotel was surrendered to the bank to pay off the debt. By this time Harding had disappeared, having fled the country under the guise of a business meeting in Vancouver. He was eventually captured in Regina, Saskatchewan.[14] After a succession of shady owners, the hotel was re branded around 1899 as the Grand Pacific Hotel, named after the recently remodeled hostelry in Chicago, which it is best known as today.

Later Owners and Restoration

In 1913 the Starr estate sold the building to real estate investor A. Rodgers for $125,000.[15] In March 1914 the body of a young man was discovered in room 48, dead from an apparent suicide by ingesting Carbolic acid.[16] A.J. Johnson, the proprietor of the hotel at the time would commit suicide just over a year later.[17] In 1931 the building was nearly gutted by an early morning fire originating from one of the basement floors, then occupied by a wholesale fish company, that vented through the hotel's central court, where flames were said to shoot 75 feet into the air. All 67 guests were either able to escape or were rescued by firefighters.[18]

The hotel continued to serve long-term guests up until October 1966, when Seattle slum clearing policies forced the now run-down hotel into Nuisance abatement. Citing prohibitive repair costs, the building's then owner, Kerry Timber Co., evicted all the residents and closed off the building's top floors indefinitely.[19] Beginning in the late 70s, The Grand Pacific and other historic buildings in the area were restored and redeveloped by Cornerstone Development Co, a subsidiary of Weyerhaeuser as part of the Waterfront Center project, which combined new construction with older buildings restored for housing.[20] During restoration, The Grand Central Hotel was interconnected with the Colonial Hotel to the north. The Grand Pacific Hotel was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 13, 1982.

See also

Notes

  1. This could possibly be a mis-attributed name as the rebuilt Toklas & Singerman Building at First & Cherry Streets was known as the California Store with the building sometimes referred to as the California Block.
  2. The Starr mansion was once located at 980 5th Avenue in Oakland's East Peralta neighborhood. Torn down decades ago, the site is now an auto rebuild shop.

References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
  2. Grant, Frederic James (1891). History of Seattle, Washington, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of Some of Its Prominent Men and Pioneers. New York: American Publishing and Engraving Co. p. 25. ISBN 9780598280718. Retrieved October 28, 2016. {{cite book}}: External link in |ref= (help)
  3. History of the Grand Central Hotel relating to the Klondike Gold Rush at the National Park Service website. Accessed November 23, 2010.
  4. "[Title Illegible] - Plans for the New Starr Block on Front Street". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Office of the Secretary of State - Washington State Library. July 10, 1889. p. 4. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
  5. "The Starr Estate Affairs". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Library of Congress. October 6, 1892. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
  6. Husted's Oakland, Alameda and Berkeley directory. San Francisco: F. M. Husted. 1884. p. 479. Retrieved May 14, 2023.
  7. "L.M. Starr Dead". Weekly Puget Sound Argus. Library of Congress. October 27, 1887. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
  8. "Notice of Dissolution". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Library of Congress. April 24, 1890. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
  9. "Walls of New Seattle; Records of Improvement in the Burnt District". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Library of Congress. June 6, 1890. Retrieved May 15, 2016.
  10. Seattle City Directory (Vol. II ed.). Seattle, WA: Polk's Seattle Directory Co. 1890. p. 26. Retrieved September 27, 2019.
  11. "For Rent - A Few Charming Rooms". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Library of Congress. September 12, 1892. Retrieved May 14, 2016.
  12. "By Scoones & Co. at Public Auction [Advertisement]". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Library of Congress. November 13, 1892. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
  13. "Ye Kenilworth Inn Reopened". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Library of Congress. November 30, 1892. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
  14. "Harding Caught at Regina". The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Library of Congress. December 17, 1897. Retrieved May 12, 2020.
  15. "Grand-Pacific Hotel Bought for $125,000". The Seattle Daily Times. Newsbank. February 27, 1913.
  16. "Mother Ill at Home, Son Takes Life Here". The Seattle Daily Times. Newsbank. February 26, 1914.
  17. "Former Hotel Man Ends His Own Life". The Seattle Daily Times. Newsbank. March 23, 1915.
  18. "67 Saved in Blaze Here". The Seattle Daily Times. Newsbank. February 3, 1931.
  19. "Two More of Old Seattle Hotels Closing". The Seattle Times. Newsbank. October 28, 1966.
  20. "Five Downtown Blocks to Be Renovated by Weyerhaeuser". The Seattle Times. Newsbank. March 20, 1980.
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