Fairmont Olympic Hotel
- Architect
- Bebb and Gould
- Year
- 1924
- Style
- Renaissance Revival
- City
- Seattle, WA
- Collection
- carl gould’s campus
The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, originally the Olympic Hotel, was built by Seattle's Chamber of Commerce after World War I to bring a world-class hotel downtown. It rose on Denny's Knoll, land city founder Arthur Denny had donated for the Territorial University that became the University of Washington, and opened in 1924, designed by the firm Bebb and Gould.
the building
Built on university land. The University of Washington had moved to its Portage Bay campus in 1895 but kept this downtown tract. In 1904 its Board of Regents leased the land to the Metropolitan Building Company under an agreement to develop it in trust for the university over the next 50 years, and the hotel rose on that leased ground.
Naming the hotel. The Seattle Times ran a public contest to name the new hotel, drawing 3,906 entries.
the style
The hotel was designed in a Renaissance style typical of the grand civic hotels of its era.
More on Renaissance Revivalsignificance
The Fairmont Olympic Hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.