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This hotel was the brainchild of Stephen Mather, the first Head of the National Park Service, who had visited Mount Rainier in 1905 and ten years later lobbied local investors to pool their resources to build this 37-room lodge. This hotel was constructed from salvaged Alaskan Cedar collected after a fire in the Silver Forest in the Mount Rainier National Park. Architect, Frederick Heath, of the Tacoma firm of Heath, Gove and Bell, adapted a previous 1911 hotel design for the Rainier Lodge. Construction on the inn began 07/1916. Hotel operations began on 07/01/1917. The rustic furnishings of the inn's interior were all hand-made from this cedar salvage. In 2007, the Paradise Inn was operated by Guest Services, Incorporated.

Preliminary plans called for an L-shaped log building, featuring a projecting central gable portion joined by bilateral wings each terminated by smaller gabled ends. Most of the building had three stories, while the taller central section--accommodating a grand lobby--had four. Paradise Inn had an alpine character, with steeply-pitched roofs, dormers (both gabled and shed) and half-timbering on the gable ends of the main building. The inn was located at 5,557 feet above sea level.

Harlan Thomas designed the 4-story lodge annex in 1920; this addition contained 100 more rooms, 58 of them with their own bathrooms.

PCAD id: 8872