Fairmont Olympic Hotel (Seattle)
| Fairmont Olympic Hotel | |
|---|---|
Fairmont Olympic Hotel Seattle
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| Hotel chain | Fairmont Hotels and Resorts |
| General information | |
| Location | United States |
| Address | 411 University Street Seattle, Washington 98101 |
| Opening | December 6, 1924 |
| Owner | Legacy Hotels Real Estate Investment Trust |
| Management | Fairmont Raffles Hotels International |
| Height | 168 feet (51 m) |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 14 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect | Bebb and Gould |
| Other information | |
| Number of rooms | 450 |
| Number of restaurants | 3 |
| Website | |
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Olympic Hotel
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| Architectural style | Italian Renaissance |
| NRHP reference # | 79002538 |
| Added to NRHP | June 15, 1979 |
The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, originally The Olympic Hotel, is a historic hotel in downtown Seattle, Washington. It was built on the original site of the University of Washington's first campus. The hotel opened in 1924, and in 1979, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
After World War I, Seattle's Chamber of Commerce appointed a committee to work toward the goal of bringing a world-class hotel to the city. The committee identified an undeveloped portion of the city's Metropolitan Tract, a downtown area covering four blocks, as an ideal location for a new hotel. The Tract was also known as Denny's Knoll, after Arthur A. Denny, one of Seattle's founders, who had donated the land for the Territorial University, which would later become the University of Washington.
The university had relocated to a campus north of Portage Bay in 1895, but still owned the downtown tract of land. The university's Board of Regents leased the land to the Metropolitan Building Company in 1904, with the agreement that it would be developed in trust for the university for the next 50 years.
The Seattle Times held a contest to name the hotel. From 3,906 entries, the committee chose The Olympic.
In 1922, once the lease had gone into effect, Seattle architects Bebb and Gould—a partnership between Charles Bebb and Carl Gould—were hired to design the hotel. Bebb and Gould created an Italian Renaissance design that was popular at the time, and this design remains one of the building's hallmarks today.
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