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AKA: Hotel Gowman, Downtown, Seattle, WA; Stewart Hotel, Downtown, Seattle, WA
Structure Type: built works - dwellings -public accommodations - hotels
Designers: Cannon, J.L., Building Contractor (firm); Hawley, H.W., and Company, General Contractors (firm); Houghton, Edwin W., Architect (firm); John L. Cannon (building contractor); H W. Hawley (building contractor); Edwin Walker Houghton (architect)
Dates: constructed 1907, demolished 1969
7 stories
Overview
This hotel was erected as an annex to the New Washington Hotel, located across the street on the northeast corner of 2nd Avenue and Stewart Street. Two investors, James A. Moore and G. Henry Whitcomb, financed construction of the annex in 1906-1907.
Building History
James A. Moore (1861-1929), a prominent turn-of-the-century Seattle real estate developer who built the still extant Moore Hotel (1907), and G. Henry Whitcomb, pooled their funds and purchased property in either late 1905 or early 1906 for the purpose of building an annex to the nearby New Washington Hotel. Whitcomb operated the Arcade Building and Realty Company in 1910, with an office in Room #400 of the Arcade Building Annex. (See Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1910, p. 1647.) He was not a long-time resident of Seattle, and it may be that he was George Henry Whitcomb (1842-1916), a retired manufacturer from Worcester, MA.
By 04/1906, English-born architect Edwin W. Houghton (1856-1927) had received the commission to design the annex. Initially, newspaper coverage indicated that Houghton would be working with the local building contractor, H.W. Hawley, on this new "Moore & Whitcomb Building." Later newspaper reports in the Seattle Times, in early 1907, another contractor, John L. Cannon, was responsible for the work. (Thank you to historian Rob Ketcherside who supplied the above information to the author in an email of 09/06/2018.)
In 1922, T. Harry Gowman became its managing director and changed its name to "Hotel Gowman." It became known as the Stewart Hotel in 1951.
Building Notes
The architect A. Warren Gould (1871-1922) lived in the Hotel Washington Annex with his wife Susie Arey Gould (1864-1921) from at least 1914 through 1917. (See R.L. Polk and Company's Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1914, p. 797 and R.L. Polk and Company's Seattle City Directory, 1917, p. 759.)
An advertisement for the Gowman Hotel in Sunset, 07/1933, had an illustration of the hotel with seven stories, not six. (See "When in Seattle," Sunset, vol. 71, no. 1, 07/1933, p. 26.)
PCAD id: 6200
