The Davenport Hotel (Spokane, Washington)

The Davenport, circa 1916

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." 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.

Banquet at the Davenport Hotel in September 1908

Depiction of Davenport's Restaurant. ca 1912

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 red tile roofs stood in marked contrast to every other building downtown.[5] This remodel added the finest ballroom in the West on the second floor, the Hall of the Doges.

The Davenport Hotel was neither Louis Davenport's idea nor was it built with his money. Instead, Cutter 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. Cutter and Davenport shopped the world for ideas and furnishings for their new hotel.[5] Cutter designed spaces inspired by the great architects of France, England and Spain. Davenport filled them with fine art and songbirds and prepared to seat his guests at tables dressed in the finest Irish linens from Liddell (whose linens sailed on the Titanic) and set with 15,000 pieces of silver (the largest private commission ever created by Reed and Barton). The hotel opened for business on September 1, 1914, and held its grand opening celebrations from September 17-19, 1914.[6] Ever since then, the hotel has promoted itself as "one of America's exceptional hotels."

The Davenport Hotel at Post and First

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.[7]

The Davenport Hotel was home to the first commercially licensed radio station in Spokane—KHQ, which signed on the air in 1922. 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 local bands, including The Musicaladers. That group's drummer dropped out of Gonzaga University and became world-famous for his singing voice. His name was Harry "Bing" Crosby.[8] KHQ radio remained a strong voice on the air for more than half a century. Both KHQ and The Davenport Hotel went dark in 1985.

In 1928, Louis Davenport bought out the hotel's other stockholders. On April 26, 1945, Davenport sold the hotel and the restaurant to the William Edris Company of Seatlle, for $1.5 million.[9] Edris sold the property two years later, in 1947, to a group of three Spokane investors. The following year, two of them sold their interest to three other investors. Seattle-based Western Hotels bought out three of the investors in 1949, and bought out the fourth investor in 1953. Davenport died in his suite at the hotel in 1951; his wife Verus in 1967.

Western Hotels remodeled the Davenport in the early 1960s and re-positioned it as a motel, with a motor entrance. In 1967, the owners, by that point renamed Western International Hotels, sold the Davenport to San Francisco-based John S. McMillan for $2.6 million.[10] McMillan sold the hotel two years later, in 1969, to Basin Industries, which announced renovation plans, but then went bankrupt in 1972 when one of its owners was convicted of securities fraud. The hotel was foreclosed on by their lenders, Dallas-based Lomas & Nettleton, one of the nation's largest mortgage bankers. In 1979, former Montana governor Tim Babcock bought the hotel for $4.25 million, along with Warren Anderson, a former General Manager of the hotel. Anderson sold his interest to Babcock in 1983. Babcock had to surrender ownership of the financially ailing property back to Lomas & Nettleton in 1985, which closed the hotel immediately. Lomas & Nettleton went bankrupt in 1989.[11]

Demolition of the hotel was considered. By the time the Davenports' only son died in 1987, it was generally believed that the Davenport Hotel would be destroyed. A demolition crew determined the entire block could be dropped in 20 seconds but the nightmare of airborne asbestos saved it from implosion. Due to the potential cost of removing the asbestos covering all the building's original plumbing, demolition was determined to be more expensive than the value of the resulting lot.[12] A citizens' group called Friends of the Davenport was founded in 1986 by City Council member (and future Spokane mayor) Sheri Barnard, with the goal of saving the hotel.[13] They held annual fund raisers in the lobby of the shuttered hotel and sought a buyer to restore it. In 1990, they found a potential savior, in Hong Kong businessman Patrick Wai-Meng Ng. His Sun International Hotels & Properties bought the hotel for $5.25 million. Ng began phased renovations, including the restoration of the lobby's skylight, but was unable to reopen the property.[14]

The restored Davenport Hotel is an integral part of the Davenport Arts District in Downtown Spokane

The Hall of Doges

In March 2000, local entrepreneurs Walt & Karen Worthy purchased the entire city block for $6.5 million, then spent two years and $38 million 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.[5] The hotel's guest floors were stripped to bare concrete and rebuilt, with fresh wiring, plumbing, drywall, furniture and fixtures. The Hall of the Doges, Spokane's oldest and finest ballroom, was removed from the oldest part of the structure and re-installed in the new East addition.[8] The removal was accomplished by lifting the ballroom out intact, making it the only flying ballroom in the world. The Davenport Hotel reopened on July 15, 2002 and celebrated its grand reopening from September 13-15, 2002[15] with the ringing of a ship's bell eight times signaling a change of the watch.