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Overview

An apartment hotel, first commissioned by Cyrus F. Clapp in 1901, occupied this site well into the 1950s. During this 50-year span, it operated under several names including the "Hotel Ferguson" and the "New Saint James Hotel."

Building History

In 1901, Senator Cyrus F. Clapp commissioned the new architectural partnership of McManus and Walker to design a hotel for a parcel in what was then a relatively sparsely-populated section of Seattle, at 1117 3rd Avenue, between Spring and Seneca Streets. The Seattle Times noted in 04/1901: "[McManus and Walker] has just completed the plans for an eighty-three-room hotel to be erected by Senator Cyrus F. Clapp, of Port Townsend, on Third avenue between Spring and Seneca, costing $40,000; the building will have an apolite tile front, the first to be used on the Pacific Coast." What an "apolite tile front" was is unclear, but it is possible that it was one of the earliest facades in Seattle to have been covered in glazed terra cotta tiles. A note in The Clay-Worker, from 08/1902, stated: "The C.W. Raymond Company, Dayton, O., advise us that they have located an agency at 1117 Third avenue, Seattle, Wash. J.E. Ballou will have charge of same." It is possible that the Raymond Company, a large producer of brick and tile products in 1901, may have opened "an agency" in Seattle to supervise the construction of this terra cotta facade. (See "Editorial Notes and Clippings," The Clay-Worker, vol. XXXVII, no 2, 08/1902, p. 162. )

This apartment building/residential hotel at 1117 3rd Avenue was known as the Ferguson Hotel in 1908. (See Raymer's Dictionary of Greater Seattle, 1908, p. 70.) It was known c. 1920 as the "New Saint James Hotel." A hotel continued here in 1941. It was called the States Hotel in 1952.

Building Notes

The Hotel Ferguson advertised that it had 100 rooms in 1909, which was a slight exaggeration; according to its ad in the Seattle Times of 07/18/1909, (coinciding with the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition), the hotel was: "The leading moderate-rate hotel of Seattle. Modern in every aspect. Hot and cold water in all rooms. Elevator service, etc. Rates 75 cents per day and up." (See classified ad, Seattle TImes, 07/18/1909.)

PCAD id: 20094