The members of the Arctic Club were happy in their snazzy new digs, but there was one thing about their first home that they missed: the bar. Reportedly, a couple of them got together and just stole the bar one night, hoisting it out the window of the old Third and Jefferson location and dragging it up the street to the new building without permission. The crown jewel of the new Arctic Club, of course, was the grand dining room, known originally as the Dome Room, spanning 3,600 square feet with an elaborate stained-glass ceiling. The Alaska Almanac described the space:Ĭostly oriental rugs and runners cover the floor, mural paintings of Northern scenery are used in the assembly room and the furnishings are in mahogany upholstered in leather” and “it is claimed apparently with justness that the Arctic Club has the richest and most commodious home of any social club west of Chicago. When it opened, the building housed a cigar store, a library, a bowling alley, a barber shop, a rooftop garden, an elegant ladies’ tea room, several card and billiards rooms, private dining rooms, private guest rooms for Arctic Club members as well as offices that were rented to the Swiss and Dutch consuls, among other tenants. The Beaux Arts architectural style was new to Seattle and considered radical for the time, especially the terra cotta walruses and polar bear above the Third Avenue entrance. The Arctic Building was one the first in Seattle to use not only terracotta panels over reinforced steel but colored terracotta as well, with the walruses as well as various other details employing light blue and ochre. Warren Gould was commissioned to build the group a themed, 8-story clubhouse with a domed ballroom-razing the 1,300-seat Seattle Theatre, part of the Rainier Club, for the occasion. That was when fancypants architect-of-the-hour A. The Arctic Club’s first home was at Third Avenue and Jefferson Street, in the building now called the Morrison Hotel, from 1909 until 1916. The organization merged with the similar-in-concept Alaska Club in 1908. One can imagine that business was also frequently transacted there. Coulter, who’d made their fortunes in the Klondike Gold Rush, established a social club called the Alaska Club along with other Arctic explorers as a place to drink and reminisce on old times in the Arctic, kind of like the VFW or the Elks.Īlthough experience in the Arctic was not required, according to the 1909 Alaska Almanac, “the men that are developing and civilizing the Northland and the men of affairs in Seattle and the Northwest generally where they can meet on a common level extend their personal acquaintance and cement more closely the ties of friendship.” Von Hasslocher and former Chicago newspaperman A. The building basically started its life as a bar. It’s also got a colorful history that spans a century. With its colorful terra cotta façade and walrus cartouches, the Arctic Club Hotel at the northeastern corner of Third Avenue and Cherry Street is hard to miss.
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