The historic Davenport Hotel. It truly is one of Spokane's greatest treasures, drawing
people from all over the world. They marveled at its beauty and its architecture. But it
was mild-mannered Louis Davenport's genius that put his hotel and Spokane on the map.
This is the remarkable story of one man's vision and how he shaped a city.
You walk into this hotel and it takes your heart and soul.
It was a place that people could really escape their mundane lives and be absorbed in this
fantasy.
Everybody that ever has been in the Davenport Hotel knows of its uniqueness and beauty.
There's no place like it in the whole world.
Through all those years, the Davenport has been part of my life. So the Davenport and
I sort of have walked hand in hand to our old age.
This grand old building has withstood the sands of time. It's a building that carries
with it a legacy of graciousness, elegance, and hospitality. The Davenport was built on
the foundation of men with vision who came to this rich area surrounding Spokane Falls.
The Inland Northwest was fast becoming known as a land of opportunity. The silver mines
of North Idaho and the vast timberlands of the Inland Northwest were magnets for men
looking to make their fortunes. Thousands of acres of fertile land south and west of
Spokane enticed farmers to settle here.
The town was booming. Between 1900 and 1910, Spokane tripled its population.
The Northern Pacific Railway, which had connected Spokane with the rest of the country by 1883,
was particularly effective recruiting newcomers to the area. It advertised the enormous potential
of mining and timber.
Anytime you get a staging point, which is what Spokane became at that time, you're going
to have a big influx of business people coming to support those people.
The result was an infusion of lifeblood into a community that was bursting at the seams.
There was no more room at the inn. Spokane's first hotel was built in 1877 at the corner
of Stevens and Front Street, which is now Spokane Falls Boulevard. The Western House
was crude in appearance, but served its purpose providing food and lodging.
The city's first major hotel was the California House, which was a block from the Western
Hotel. It became a cultural center for both social and business events.
Little did anyone know, in 1889, they were about to meet a young man from California
who would chain Spokane forever. Although he was less than average height, soft-spoken,
and was overly modest, he would be the person to bring worldwide recognition to this young
city.
Louie had never came to Spokane just on a whim.
The popular story is, Louie Davenport had only enough money to get this far. And with
just a couple dollars in change, he had no prospects. But in reality, the young Davenport
had a ready-made berth in the hotel restaurant business, where Davenport was already a familiar
name.
This whole Davenport era started with Louie's uncle, Elijah.
Historians Tony and Suzanne Bermonti spent months researching the Davenport family.
We were suspicious when Elijah Davenport kept showing up connected to the restaurant and
the hotel business. And it was hard to find. We did a lot of tracking on this. We went
back to New York, and we went to California, and just all over the place.
As early as 1887 in Spokane, Elijah Davenport converted a machine shop into the U.S. hotel.
He also owned a restaurant, a meat market, and three other hotels. His merchant's hotel
was unofficially called the Davenport. It was erected following the fire of 1889 and
housed many of those left homeless. It stood next to the Masonic Temple until 1922, when
it was demolished.
It was Uncle Elijah who was responsible for Louie's decision to move to Spokane and enter
the restaurant business. Louie was a 20-year-old from Red Bluff, California, where his father
and uncle were partners in a mercantile business. Louie's former work history had been primarily
as a clerk.
Louie had a brother and a sister, and his brother and sister moved here, and his mother
also lived here. So it was a very tacit part of history that's never been mentioned about
Louie Davenport.
When Louie arrived in town in 1889, Elijah put him to work in his Pride of Spokane restaurant,
where he learned the basics of serving the public. By August of that year, Louie had
taken over as proprietor.
Only days later, on August 4th, during a prolonged hot spell, a firestorm broke out that nearly
wiped the Spokane business district off the map. 30 blocks of businesses, hotels and restaurants
were destroyed. Louie's first experience in restaurant ownership went up in smoke.
Louie wasted no time. After the fire, he salvaged most of the kitchen equipment from his Pride
of Spokane restaurant, and in two days, he set up temporary quarters just outside the
burn area.
A short time later, Louie opened his famous waffle foundry. A long-held myth says it was
housed in a tent, but records of the time indicate Davenport's setup shop in a partially
completed building with an open roof covered by canvas tarps.
Former Spokane police chief Joel Warren wrote a letter to Davenport during the 32nd year
anniversary of Louie's career. He wrote,
If my memory serves me right, I ate a dozen of your waffles on the occasion of your opening,
which led to the many years of successful catering to the wishes of hundreds of thousands
of people.
Seven months after he opened his Davenport's famous waffle foundry, he moved across the
street. I think they were probably completing construction on the building that he was in,
but at this time, he really did move into a bona fide tent. He moved in there on July
1st of 1890, and within three days, it caught fire.
In what would be his final location, Louie opened Davenport's restaurant on July 10th,
1890, on the northeast corner of the Wilson Block at Sprague and Post. There he began
establishing the highest standards ever set in Spokane's restaurant industry. No one,
not even Louie himself, would have had the faintest notion that 24 years later, one of
the world's finest hotels would be constructed right next door.
Within a few days of its opening, Davenport's restaurant got a five-star rating from the
Spokane Falls Review. Nothing escaped the attention of the reporter.
The exterior is particularly inviting, there being two entrances on either side of a spacious
bay window, which is decorated with a novel miniature flower mill. The kitchen is equipped
with every conceivable culinary utensil, enormous ranges, the latest improved refrigerators,
and every modern appliance for keeping all edibles fresh and wholesome.
The restaurant had finally given Spokane a gathering place that would compare with the
best anywhere. A New Year's Day menu demonstrates Louie's intention to cater to a wide range
of tastes. Customers could order simple macaroni a la creme for 20 cents, or broiled quail
on toast with bacon for 40 cents.
Louie Davenport had a philosophy to make a little money off of a lot of people rather
than a lot of money off a few, so he really catered to a wide range of tastes.
One of the nation's popular writers trumpeted the glories of Spokane and its leading restaurateur
in a national magazine in 1906. Albert Hubbard described Spokane as the model city of America.
He added, the best example of Spokane's spirit is Davenport's restaurant.
In fact, one quote was that it was the best restaurant in the entire state of Washington.
They were raving about how good it was, and it soon became the center of social life in
Spokane.
When President William Taft toured the Northwest in 1909, he was escorted by cavalry and infantry
from the train depot to Louie's restaurant, where he was served breakfast and later lunch.
Louie's dream was now becoming a reality.
By 1906, Louie Davenport was generally regarded as married to his business, but on August
30th of that year, he surprised everyone but his most intimate acquaintances by heading
to New York City to marry his sweetheart, Miss Vera Smith.
Their home would temporarily be a second-floor apartment over the Davenport restaurant.
It would also be the first home for Llewellyn M. Davenport II, who was born in 1907.
The headline in the Chronicle read, Happy Louis Davenport. According to the news article,
there was the expectation already at day one that he would take over the Davenport empire,
but Louis had different ideas and did not follow in his father's footsteps.
In the years preceding his marriage, Louie continued to expand his lease on the Wilson
Block. In 1904, he purchased that property, along with the Bellevue Building. At that
time, his future sister-in-law, Maude Pennington, leased it from him, and he let her call it
the Pennington Hotel.
I've always wanted to clarify the business about the Pennington, because people tend
to say that whole eastern end of the Davenport Hotel was called the Pennington, and it wasn't.
There actually are two buildings, and they were two different names.
Also in 1904, Louis Davenport commissioned Kirtland Cutter to remodel his restaurant.
The exterior mission-style design was unique and somewhat of a novelty among downtown's
more conservative buildings. Above the restaurant, Cutter began designing the Hall of the Doges,
which would become Spokane's premier ballroom and banquet facility.
The Hall of Doges was taken from Venice, Italy, of course, and so it has these beautiful columns
and all of the elaborate detail, and it reminds you of something you might see in Italy.
Cutter followed Louis' instructions to spare no expense and make it the finest ballroom
in the West. He designed a beautiful dome and a promenade twenty feet wide.
The Hall of the Doges was Spokane's crowning jewel for banquet rooms. It was the most elaborate,
beautiful banquet rooms that Spokane's ever had.
As early as 1906, several city leaders began to push the idea of a grand hotel to bolster
Spokane's image as a major city. Louis Davenport may have been a later participant in the discussions,
but clearly he was not the originator of the project. In 1908, Louis and Kirtland Cutter
were busy building his Eighth Avenue Mansion. It would take nearly three years to complete.
Shortly after the construction of his house, Louis had a major course change. Even though
it was Spokane's most palatial home, they only ended up living there about two and a
half years.
That's because he was made an offer he couldn't refuse. All eyes turned to Louis Davenport.
They looked for a key man, and they recognized the potential Louis had. He had proven to
himself already that he was going to be the key man for this hotel.
So the Davenports made a trade with the Richard Porter family.
But he sold it because he needed the money to put into the new hotel, the construction
of it.
Porter got the mansion while the Davenports got a home on West Sumner, some rockwood property,
and $95,000 in cash. Once he took the reins, Louis Davenport became the controlling partner
and the last word in every aspect of the hotel's development. The new hotel would be built
on the same block as his restaurant.
Kirtland Cutter was the artist and Carl Malmgren the engineer. Cutter had produced an original
design for the hotel, which Davenport and his partners requested he alter because the
ornamentation was too expensive and had become passe.
The new design of the hotel was shaped in a U so that every guest room would have a
view.
The Sprague Avenue side would be 12 stories and the First Avenue side three.
You might say the lobby is supposedly Spanish Renaissance and it is Spanish Renaissance
inspired. The Isabella room is supposedly Spanish in some ways. The Marie Antoinette
room is certainly neoclassical. But he did his own things with them.
Meanwhile, the newspapers had an item of interest to tease their readers. It was a list of Spokane's
millionaires. Louis Davenport was number 12. He was in elite company with the likes of
F. A. Blackwell, W. H. Cole, Patsy Clark and 22 others.
The original investors in the Davenport Hotel reached like a who's who and important people
for early Spokane. Anybody that had money or was prominent in the entire Northwest invested
in this.
Spokane finally got underway in 1913. As the structure reached the twelfth floor, over
42,000 pounds of steel had been used in the frame. Despite the dangers involved, not one
worker was killed or even seriously hurt, which was rare for those days.
Because of his respect for Native Americans, Davenport invited them to be a presence during
and after construction. At a children's powwow in 1913, members of the Blackfeet Tribe from
Montana set up their teepees inside the framework of the building's steel posts and girders.
Unofficially, they were the hotel's first guests.
Davenport often reached beyond Spokane looking for expert and specialty contractors with strong
credentials to do certain parts of the decorating. He selected E.J. Holzlag of Chicago to do
the first and second floors.
The lobby of the Davenport will be unique and nothing like it has ever been done in
the United States. It is destined to be the best known hotel lobby west of Chicago and
none in America will be ahead of it.
The total cost of the Davenport was calculated at $2 million. Marble for the interior cost
$50,000. Furniture would come to $200,000. Another feature that attested to Louis' determination
to make his hotel the best was a 40-ton refrigeration plant that would not only make ice and provide
air conditioning, but would provide ice water on tap.
Each room had in their basin, they had a spout that came out and said ice water on it. And
you could take a glass of water and it would be real, real cold.
Even the garbage was frozen for sanitary reasons and to protect the patrons from offensive
odors. Louis was not content with a hotel that was just upscale in its decor.
He was a very particular man.
We used to go in there once in a while and just sit to look at all the pretty things
that were around in the pictures and all the fireplace and the big chandelier, you know.
The magnificent lobby, for example, needed just a little touch, something to attract and
hold the attention. In typical Davenport style, he decided upon an assortment of tropical
birds, mainly lovebirds and canaries, in cages all around the lobby. He looked for areas
that needed something extra.
And the wall of the coffee shop across from the desk had fish in a tank there.
If it seems Davenport carried his ideas for a world-class hotel to extremes, his selection
of silverware might confirm that opinion. No less than 15,886 pieces were ordered, each
to be engraved with the name Davenport and the hotel's crest.
The Davenport's grand opening had been scheduled for September 17th, 1914, but the demand for
banquets was so great, he unofficially opened the doors on September 1st.
At the evening's end, more than 10,000 visitors had toured the hotel while being entertained
by singers, dancers and a symphony orchestra.
It was the center of life and people came from all over the country to visit here.
The official grand opening was a three-day event. It could have been the unveiling of
the eighth wonder of the world, such was the majesty of Davenport and Cutter's creation.
The first night featured the main banquet with 1,500 guests. Hundreds more packed the
lobby in mezzanine.
The first Miss Spokane, Marguerite Mochi, was awarded the honor of officially presenting
the hotel to the public.
She's very charismatic, very good with people, a great orator and just very welcoming. She
was Spokane's official city hostess.
The 17-year-old wore traditional Indian dress, which the Native American community heartily
endorsed.
Once the festivities were over, the Davenport quickly became the centerpiece of Spokane's
social and business life.
Louie's restaurant was, of course, one of the hotel's most prominent attractions. Its
popularity grew even more following its incorporation into the hotel.
In 1922, Louie had another of his creative urges. He remodeled his restaurant and named
it the Italian Gardens.
And there was nothing that they wouldn't serve.
The selection of a head chef was critical. Hiring Edward Matthew in 1917 was a stroke
of the Davenport genius. Louie researched Matthew's classic training as a chef and his experience
in major hotels around the world. He even took the train to San Francisco to interview
him. Matthew respected Louie Davenport from the start.
One of my favorite dinners was rare roast beef au jus.
Matthew would become the Davenport's head chef for 30 years.
When it was served, it would come on a plate with a silver cover over and they would take
that off with a flourish and voila, you had your dinner.
He served as many as 2,300 people at one sitting.
Yes, I can still taste it. After all these years, it was beautiful.
When it comes to designing the Davenport, most people give all the credit to architect
Kirtland Cutter. But in later years, another Spokane architect, G.A. Pearson, designed
major portions of the hotel, including the 11-story addition in 1929.
The Davenports liked Pearson so much that they also had him design their flower field
home and Louis Jr.'s family home in California. Well, from the eyes of a 6-, 8-, 10-year-old
child, I saw him as a jolly man. Louie Davenport III is a farmer. The hotel
business was never his passion, but over the years, he often came to Spokane to visit his
grandparents. It was huge for me, especially coming from
a rural area in California. I saw him as caring a lot for his family and enjoying his family.
While running the hotel was a never-ending job, Louie and Verus were also busy raising
their young son. At the age of three, Louis II moved with his family to their estate on
8th Avenue. Family photographs show a fondness for toys with wheels, including the automobile,
which was just beginning to be popular. The family also spent time at nearby lakes.
You can just tell by the look on his face how he felt about this little boy.
The Davenports lived in an apartment on the 10th floor of the hotel for many years, but
they missed the gardens at their South Hill home. In 1926, they built a summer home by
the Little Spokane River where St. George's School is today. It was beautifully landscaped,
so they named it, appropriately, Flower Field. Not far away in Deer Park, Louie owned a chicken
farm which supplied fresh eggs to his restaurant. I applied for a busboy's job in the Italian
gardens under Louie Davenport. John Reed was 13 years old in 1942 when he learned his new
boss was a perfectionist. If you set up a table, he'd come by and check it. If it wasn't
right, he'd tear it apart and redo it until it was right. So after about the first or
second time of that, well, you learn pretty fast. Louie Davenport's employees knew what
was expected from them the day they started work. His policy was outlined in a handbook.
A surly look or a discourteous word is more than enough to banish in a second all memory
a guest may have of a comfortable bed or an exceptional meal. Louie was a real taskmaster.
You either did what he expected of you, and he was real clear and succinct in what he
suspected he expected you to do, how you conducted yourself, or you were gone. It was kind of
a no-nonsense thing. That was the main thing. You had to be pleasant and have a smile on
your face. Helen Hayes worked for Louie Davenport in the mid-20s in the Apple Bower. Well, it
was like a fountain, you know, and they had sold apple juice and orange juice and little
cakes from their bakery and sandwiches. We had our uniforms, and we had to be, you know,
be sure that everything was placed right on the tables and be very courteous. Most employees
understood Mr. Davenport's policies and respected him. They also knew why he watched over every
detail in the daily workings of the hotel, which some say was the key to his success.
I remember my father telling me this story. When he was a young man, he worked for Crane
Company, and they delivered supplies here to the hotel, and Dad said they delivered
the bathtubs. Louie Davenport would come up and inspect every single bathtub, and if he
found a flaw in the tub, he would mark an X on it and make them take it back. Louie
took steps to make sure his guests would not only remember his hotel, but would make return
visits. One of his many luxuries was a silver burnishing machine. It not only cleaned the
hotel's silver service, every coin returned to a guest was sanitary and sparkling clean.
For instance, in those days, if you gave somebody a $10 bill and got $5 in change, you'd get
five silver dollars, and here in the Davenport, they would all be bright and shiny, just like
new. In fact, I remember if I could wheedle my dad out of one of the dollars, I would
do it. That would be one of my treats in coming to the Davenport. It was well known that Louie
was a great innovator in the hotel business. They did have beautiful shops and they had
everything that people would want right there. Technically, the Davenport Hotel could be
considered Spokane's first shopping center. There was an array of shops and services,
everything from a confectionery and haberdashery to a Baghdad bazaar. Of course, in those days,
there were so many coming, notable people and everybody. They'd go to the Davenport,
that was it. Dozens of famous people stayed at the Davenport, including 11 U.S. presidents.
And Louis Davenport's apartment is where Teddy Roosevelt stayed when he came on his visit
in 1911. It was the same time he dedicated Lewis and Clark High School. In 1917, Louie
Davenport played host to stage and silent movie star Tyrone Power. Following a six-day
survey of Spokane's scenic possibilities, Power decided to establish Spokane's first
movie studio, which was built at Minnehaha Park. A few years later, silent screen actress
Nell Shipman moved to Spokane with cast and crew. She lived in the Davenport Hotel while
she directed and starred in silent movies that she produced at the Minnehaha Studio.
Shipman later moved to Priest Lake and established a movie studio on the northeast shores called
Lionhead Lodge. Louis Davenport invited world famous poet Vachel Lindsay to live in his
hotel in 1924. Lindsay made himself right at home in the Davenport, reciting poetry in
the lobby. Queen Marie of Romania was the first royal guest to visit the city of Spokane.
While touring the Davenport, the royal party was inducted into the Coeur d'Alene and Nez
Perce tribes. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh flew into Spokane in his spirit of St. Louis. It
was such a significant event that all city schools closed at noon to allow the kids to
see him speak at the fairgrounds. When Lindbergh came to the Davenport, during one of the banquets,
the mayor, it was Mayor Fleming asking him if he had ever tasted moose meat and he said
no. Well, but he would like to. Well the next morning that's what Lindbergh had for breakfast
was moose meat. The Davenport was known to many locals as Spokane's unifying force, where
people came from both sides of the river to meet. Rich or poor, it didn't matter. The
thing that's most vivid in my mind was a story about my grandfather. Louis Davenport wanted
to make everyone feel at home in his hotel. And a lady by the name of Mrs. Haddad owned
a shop there in the hotel. And she shared a story about an older couple who came into
the lobby and had a sack lunch and sat down at one of the tables and were eating their
lunch in there. And my grandfather had an office on the mezzanine and he came to the
rail and looked down and saw them. And she was watching the whole thing from her shop
door and thought, oh, I hope that this doesn't become an ugly scene because he turned around
right away and went back to his office. But in just a few minutes a couple of waiters
came out with tablecloth and linen and stemware and everything and fixed the table up for
them and had dishes and everything they needed to make their lunch more enjoyable. That really
touched her and that was probably 50 years prior to when she was telling me the story.
I just really remember that and glad that my grandfather was that way.
People would stop you on the street and say, which way is the Davenport Hotel? We're from
Iowa or we're from Texas and we want to get to the Davenport. They wanted to see this
wonderful edifice. The hotel drew all kinds of people, including those seeking publicity
or money. The human spider makes it to the top of the Davenport in 20 minutes. In this
case on an evening in August 1921, Bill Strother traveled from North Carolina to scale the
Davenport Hotel. The crowd gasped as he let his feet slip on the way up and stood on his
head on a windowsill on the ninth floor, then climbing his way to the roof. Most people
didn't know it at the time, but Strother was a Hollywood stunt man. In 1934, Betty and
Benny Fox performed a dance on top of a 57 foot pole on the roof of the Davenport. Their
dance in the clouds lasted for 12 hours. The cost for spectators, 25 cents. The Davenport
also kept patrons coming back by continually providing a variety of shows, like this maypole
dance in the lobby as early as 1915. Fashion shows in the Marie Antoinette room helped
attract women. For the men, Louis capitalized on the popularity of automobiles and he went
to great lengths to bring in the latest models. These 1915 cars took up a major portion of
the hotel lobby. In 1932, Louis brought a Chevrolet sedan into the Marie Antoinette
room. That fascination with automobiles would come with a price. Parking became a major
problem for the Davenport. There was no place to park. You couldn't just pull in some place
and leave your car or have somebody take it. It was just a major downfall. So in 1939,
Louis constructed a basement garage to accommodate 75 cars. An electric elevator would lower
them from the street level in nine seconds. I've tried to think of all my encounters with
the Davenport Hotel and they're all such fond memories. It's not difficult to see why the
Davenport is so dearly remembered by so many people. And my mother would think up things
that would be exciting for us for a weekend holiday. So she dressed the four of us up,
two boys and two girls, in our finest clothes and we came downtown and entered the Davenport
Hotel. And we were so very well behaved that they allowed us to go up on the balcony and
sit at the little writing desks and use their stationery. But most importantly, standing
on the balcony and looking down at all the beautiful people. I don't think I'll ever
forget that. When I was five and my mom would take me down in the basement at her house
and at night we'd turn on the radio and we'd listen. That's my first memory of the Davenport.
Jamie's dad, Jim Baker, was born the same year the Davenport was built. He became one
of the most popular entertainers at the hotel, playing to packed crowds in the early birds
room. He'd arrange all the music for the band and he had a knack for it and they were nice
arrangements. He was able to make a seven-piece band sound a lot larger than it really was.
Jamie has all 4,000 arrangements his dad wrote over the years, each one his favorite song
at the time. These are a lot of the arrangements that were played at the Davenport in the early
20s and 30s and over here there's 6,000 pieces of sheet music going back to the 1890s. Now
back to Jim Baker and his music for Dancing and Dreaming. Tea dances were very popular
in the early days in the Davenport lobby. They were brought back in the 70s on Friday
afternoons. Jim Baker's band provided the music. It seemed kind of natural that dad
would end up in the lobby playing the tea dances and it was always a fun place to walk
into. He enjoyed his music. The war years were profitable for the Davenport. During
World War I, this dance in the Hall of Dojas attracted military men stationed in the Inland
Northwest. And people met in the lobby of the Davenport. During the war years of World
War II, the men slept in the Davenport lobby. I mean, Lewis Davenport welcomed them and
told them they were very welcome to come here. During the Second World War, Spokane was home
to Geiger Field, Fort Wright and Galena, which is now Fairchild Air Force Base. Farragut
Naval Station was also only 40 miles from Spokane, so the hotel became the scene of
the continuous parade of uniforms. And the most wonderful memory, I believe, of those
trips in with the crews from the airplanes, everybody wanted to get here to eat the French
onion soup. And it was known from coast to coast. We ate here many, many times when at
midnight I would get off work at almost 11 at night. You could get here in the Davenport
coffee shop for 50 cents, a sterling silver casserole dish with spaghetti and meatballs.
The whole military framework came in here when Dancing Place is closed. As a reporter
and associate editor for the Spokesman Review, Dorothy Powers covered most of the events
surrounding the hotel. The first kinds of stories that I wrote were about things that
were important to the city of Spokane and that coincidentally happened in the Davenport
Hotel. And if you trace that back, they happened because of Louis Davenport. Dorothy Powers
met her future husband at the Davenport, a B-17 pilot stationed at Geiger Field. In the
autumn, we did go to the European Theater and was there two years. I think in every
letter that I ever received from him, he'd say, how are things at the Davenport? Tell
so and so hello. When Elwood Powers returned from the war, he and Dorothy were married
and spent their wedding night in the hotel. I'm now 79 and in the fall we'll be 80. And
through all those years, the Davenport has been part of my life and part of the lives
of people who grew up here. The fireplace in the Davenport lobby was a warm and inviting
symbol for guests. During the cold months, the fire was never allowed to go out, day
or night. In fact, it was one elderly man's sole job to keep the fire burning. But as
the war years came to an end, the glory days of the Davenport were beginning to flicker
out. The unfortunate decline of the grand and gracious old hotel began in 1945. With
a heavy use during World War II, coupled with a shortage of materials and labor, the hotel
needed refurbishing. At the age of 77 and in failing health, Louis Davenport put his
hotel up for sale. From a list of offers, he selected a trusted acquaintance and veteran
Seattle hotel man, William Idris. And he kind of made Davenport a promise that he just loved
the hotel and he wanted to continue in Davenport's tradition. The selling price was $1.5 million,
a rare bargain for such a magnificent landmark. But just two years later, Idris sold to three
Spokane investors, making a million dollar profit. Davenport's tradition of excellence
would start a downward spiral. And you take 10, 10 turnovers during that whole time and
as cruel as it may sound, every owner took more away from the hotel than they put in.
Most of those buyers did not have the ability to maintain the hotel's high standards with
the same zeal and expertise as Louis Davenport. From the time he started in business with
his restaurant up through his retirement with the hotel in 1945, he was recognized as Spokane
stop businessman. From their apartment on the 11th floor, Louis and Viris watched their
beloved hotel go from one owner to the next, slipping further into decline. They both loved
their city and they loved the hotel and I think they wanted to be really good stewards
of what they had and give back to the people in the city of Spokane. On July 28th, 1951
at the age of 83, Louis died in his hotel suite with Viris at his side. Mourners from
around the world sent their condolences. Viris outlived her husband by 16 years. She stayed
in their apartment until her death at the age of 89. Beautiful lady, wonderful. You
couldn't ask for a finer person. The Davenports were buried in Spokane in a small, inconspicuous
section of Riverside Memorial Park. Even though the Davenport son had not lived in Spokane
for 50 years, Louis loved his hometown. Both he and his wife were buried next to his parents
and his aunt, Maud Pennington Hollis. My dad grieved over the prospects of that hotel being
torn down and I think he probably thought it would happen because he died in 1986 and
those were pretty gloomy times for the hotel and any prospects of it being restored. The
decline reached its lowest point when a mortgage company took control and closed the Davenport
in 1985. Everybody was worried that it was going to be demolished. For five years the
hotel sat vacant. The mortgage company hired a small staff to maintain and secure the building.
Evelyn Conant was the caretaker during those dark years. The people that would come to
my door when I was acting as caretaker, one in particular, this gentleman said, can I
talk to you? And I said certainly and he says, today is my 50th wedding anniversary. He says
and I just lost my wife. He says, would you allow me to go to the room that we spent our
wedding night in? I says, well can you describe it to me? And he says, well it was pretty
high up in the hotel and had blue wallpaper on it but it had mirrors on the wall. And
so I took him up to the ninth floor and took him in this room that had no carpet. Everything
had been stripped out but the wallpaper was blue and there were mirrors on the wall. And
the look on his face was worth every bit of the effort. And that happened over and over
again. Over and over again.
By 1987, the Davenport could be considered on death row. There appeared to be no possibility
of reprieve from the wrecking ball. And I said gosh, I guess I better start a group.
Spokane City Councilwoman Sheri Barnard and Spokane architect Ron Wendel were instrumental
in forming a group dedicated to saving the hotel. They named it the Friends of the Davenport.
That's why we named it the Friends because we wanted to support the owners forever. Once
the Friends were founded, they left no stone unturned to try and save it. They went as
far as to contact Donald Trump and the Prince of Wales to see if they would be interested
in purchasing the hotel and doing the restoration. Sun International Hotels of Hong Kong purchased
the Davenport in 1990 for five million dollars. They sent Patrick Ng and we all knew that
he came to tear it down and build a parking lot. We just knew it. So we set out to win
him over. He did not know he was going to have to contend with the Friends of the Davenport.
The Ings couldn't help but become enthusiastic about saving the hotel. I guess that had to
be one of the most thrilling days of my life. They removed the structure that had been built
over the lobby ceiling during World War II and restored the glass. Patrick Ng was the
brother who was here. He was ten years older than Y Choi and he would not let me see the
lobby of the Davenport Hotel until the total roof was off and I walked into the hotel.
It was magnificent and still is to this day. So it chokes me up just to think about it.
That just created a stir amongst the people of Spokane that they wanted to use this hotel.
I mean they really all had hope finally, especially with the light coming through the lobby. Sun
International planned to refurbish the Davenport to the tune of twenty million dollars but
after just two million they gave up the struggle complicated by an underground oil spill, a
disagreement with the city over a proposed parking garage and other problems. They sold
the Davenport to Walden Karen Worthy for six and a half million dollars in May of 2000.
During my negotiations during the ten years or so that the Ng's owned it, I in fact approached
them virtually every year and told them I was their buyer of the last resort to call
me when everything else fell through and that's kind of what happened. The Worthys would prove
to be the saving grace for Louis Davenport's Grand Hotel. Believing is the magic that will
make your dream come true. The purchase of the Davenport Hotel marks the highlight of
my career. What Walt Worthy is doing for all of us is not just taking us down memory lane
but restoring a part of our youth. When the Worthys purchased the Davenport Hotel they
bought the entire block with all the buildings. It's as much as I want to tackle. You can't
really put together a plan for what to do to how to fix it. You can't really just read
something out of a book. The renovation of the Davenport block can justifiably be described
as major surgery. Simple cosmetics would not cure the problems with the older buildings.
More than 100 years old the original Davenport's restaurant and the Pennington Hotel were beyond
repair with advanced structural dry rot, crumbling walls and collapsing ceilings. To accommodate
the Davenport Hotel the two original buildings would have to be torn down and replaced with
a new structure. To be competitive the new building would need a grand entrance and valet
parking but that was just the beginning. Well that was another agonizing problem to deal
with what to do with the Hall of Dojas. It was too nice to haul to the dump yet it was
too problematic in view of the building that was around it that held it up to keep it.
So finally I dreamed up the idea of lifting it out and sitting it back in as a kind of
the focal point of the new ballroom that we planned to build on that floor. The Hall of
the Dojas which was the most elegant ballroom in Spokane will be used as a pre-function
area in the new grand ballroom. The reason I like the Hall of Dojas is because it's the
last remnant of the old Davenport's restaurant and now that that whole building is gone this
is the one thing that we have left to remind us of that time frame the 1890s. The Worthys
restored the Marie Antoinette and Isabella rooms to a point surpassing their original
elegance. Local artist Melville Holmes was largely responsible for bringing these rooms
back to life as well as most of the ornate detail in the lobby and other areas. We wanted
to bring out as much as possible within a unity of design harmonious design for the
whole room we wanted to bring out the details so that people could see what was there because
like this room people could not see what a lot of these figures and things were it was
they were all lost excessive paint and just being all one color you can see the little
ornamental freezes on the mezzanine level up there that there are two young fawns or
satyrs with a lyre between them things like that. The original hotel rooms were demolished
and scaled back from 400 to 281 but they will be larger and more elegant reflecting the
grandeur of the ballrooms. The only room to be saved on the upper floors is the beloved
circus room dedicated by Louis to his good friend Harper Joy. One of Spokane's businessmen
Joy had a lifelong passion for the circus to an extent of joining Ringling Brothers
from time to time. Up to 150 workers are transforming the Davenport Hotel. The Worthys estimate
the cost of their project to be more than 30 million dollars. Their goal a four star
hotel. It's going to give the people in Spokane something to be proud of hopefully and I think
we're going to have one of the best venues for all kinds of social functions in the whole
northwest. I think it's a it's really a gift to the city of Spokane. In the spirit of all
he stood for Louis Davenport would be thankful to the people of Spokane for their unwavering
loyalty and to the Worthys for their commitment and ingenuity in bringing Spokane's legendary
Davenport Hotel back to life. Now I walk into the hotel and it's the most wonderful feeling
that all's right in the world. I truly feel that.
The Davenport Waltz was written in honor of Louis' restaurant by a Spokane composer Arnold
Scammell that was in 1909 and guests danced to it in the early years of the hotel until
waltzing became less fashionable. But now it's being played again decades later being
brought back to life by another Spokane composer Don Carone.