Mayflower Hotel
| The Mayflower Hotel | |
|---|---|
The Mayflower Hotel
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| General information | |
| Location | 1127 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Opening | February 18, 1925 |
| Owner | Rockwood Capital |
| Management | Marriott Hotels |
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 10 |
| Design and construction | |
| Architect |
Warren & Wetmore; Robert F. Beresford |
| Developer | Allen E. Walker |
| Other information | |
| Number of rooms | 512 |
| Number of suites | 69 (includes two presidential suites) |
| Number of restaurants | 1 |
| Website | |
 
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| Coordinates | 38°54′15.85″N 77°2′23.29″W / 38.9044028°N 77.0398028°WCoordinates: 38°54′15.85″N 77°2′23.29″W / 38.9044028°N 77.0398028°W |
| Architectural style | Beaux-Arts |
| NRHP Reference # | 83003527 |
| Added to NRHP | November 14, 1983 |
The Mayflower Hotel, is a historic hotel in downtown Washington, D.C., located on Connecticut Avenue NW. It is two blocks north of Farragut Square (one block north of the Farragut North Metro station). The hotel is managed by the Autograph Collection Hotels division of Marriott International. The Mayflower is the largest luxury hotel in the District of Columbia, the longest continuously operating hotel in the Washington D.C. area, and a rival of the nearby Willard InterContinental and Hay-Adams Hotels. The Mayflower is known as the "Grande Dame of Washington", the "Hotel of Presidents", and as the city's "Second Best Address" (the White House is the first)—the latter sobriquet attributed to President Harry S. Truman (a frequent guest at the hotel).
The site on which the Mayflower Hotel sits was, after the organization of the District of Columbia in 1792, initially owned by the federal government. The federal government finally sold the property to Nathaniel Carusi for $5,089. Carusi sold the site to the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary in 1867 for $50,000. The order built the Convent of the Visitation on the site, a structure that occupied the land until the construction of the Mayflower Hotel itself.
The Mayflower Hotel was built by Allen E. Walker, the land developer behind Brookland and other residential neighborhoods of Washington. Initially called the Hotel Walker, it was to have 11 stories, 1,100 rooms, and cost $6.2 million ($88,710,537 in 2017 dollars). On May 27, 1922, the Walker Hotel Company was organized, with Allen Walker as president. The corporation issued 80,000 shares of worth $2 million and 80,000 shares of , and purchased a site on the north half of the block on DeSales Street between 17th Street and Connecticut Avenue. Plans for the hotel, whose cost was now pegged at $6.75 million ($96,580,020 in 2017 dollars), now included an 11-story, 1,100-room hotel facing Connecticut Avenue, whose first two floors would be common rooms, and an eight-story residential hotel facing 17th Street. Robert F. Beresford of Washington, D.C., and the New York City architectural firm of Warren and Wetmore were appointed the architects, and Beresford said the structure would be built of concrete and brick around a steel frame. Indiana limestone would be used for the facade on the first three floors, with rusticated brick and terra cotta trim on all upper floors. By June 6, however, the cost of the hotel had risen to $8 million ($109,252,372 in 2017 dollars), largely due to a sizeable expansion in the size of the ballrooms (the largest of which could now seat 1,600 people), meeting rooms, and other public spaces on the first two floors and first basement level.
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