Marqueen Hotel Seattle

We just returned from a long weekend in Washington, we flew down to attend a family reunion with my husband’s family in Olympia and had decided to take an extra night and stay at a “haunted hotel” in Seattle while we did some fun tourist stuff.

Richard’s brother and Conner would also be with us, so when I went on the hunt for the perfect Seattle haunted hotel I wanted one big enough to comfortably sleep three adults and a child, close to attractions we might want to see and of course, the hotel needed to have history and preferably original era décor.

 

I found the Marqueen hotel on line; it is located in the Queen Anne neighborhood, a close walk to the space needle and the monorail to the pier, it seemed perfect.

Grand staircase

3rd floor hall

I fell in love with this light fixture

1st floor hall

The Marqueen was originally built in 1918 as the Seattle Engineering School and used to retrain blacksmiths who worked at the Ford assembly plant. In 1920, the school opened a training garage in part of the building, which was the largest single garage in the city at the time. During the 1920’s building automobiles was a long process and trained mechanics were in high demand, due to this they were often treated better than other members of the working class were at that time, they were provided with nice housing and carried a high status within society.  The building continued to operate as a school and then a garage for over 50 years. The garage portion of the building remained a repair shop until 1979 when it moved to the top of Queen Anne Hill.  This portion of the building has since housed restaurants, continuing to do so today.

In 1926 the school closed and the building was renovated into the Marqueen Apartments, there were about 70 units in the building as well as a beautiful lobby complete with Alaskan marble, terrazzo floors and a gorgeous grand staircase.

In the 1990’s this beautiful building was again renovated into a hotel, which retained the Marqueen name.

We arrived at the hotel very early and had hoped to drop off our luggage and do some sightseeing, we were immediately greeted by a smartly dressed doorman who offered to park our car and take our luggage inside. Once inside we were told our room was ready and we could check in early, the doorman then offered to carry our luggage up the three flights of stairs to our room (there is no elevator). We took our own luggage, but I was impressed with the offer.

 

Walking into the hotel I was immediately pleased with my choice to stay here, the lobby is inviting and feels like 1920, we made our way up the stairs to the 3^rd floor where we were booked in room 314. The room was large with a sitting area, bedroom with a view of the space needle, a separate kitchen area and a lovely bathroom with a deep tub.

 

I have been unable to find any reports of a “resident ghost” at this property or of any historical events that might have left behind something to haunt the property, but it was built in 1918 leaving me to believe that there is likely some residual energy residing within the hotel.

I did read some reports of previous guests feeling like they were being watched, and one who swears she heard her doorknob turning on multiple occasions only to find no one in the hall.

Our stay was pretty paranormally uneventful, Richard did notice that our door was closed but not latched as if someone had turned the knob, but this could also have been one of us not shutting the old door hard enough to latch.

   

View from our window

 

Interestingly the morning we got up Conner was talking on the phone to his mommy who asked him if he saw any ghosts and he replied only the one floating on the ceiling and one above the hotel outside that no one else could see. He did not seem to be bothered by it, and when I asked him about it further he had little interest in sharing his story with me, his 5 year old self was far more interested in building his Legos. I did ask him if anything had scared him after hearing him talk to his mommy, but he just said no everyone is nice here and then asked if we could stay an additional night.