Everything about Mayflower Hotel totally explained
» This article is about the hotel in Washington, D.C. There are other historic hotels by the name of Mayflower, including the Mayflower Hotel on the Park in New York City (closed and demolished in 2004), the Mayflower Hotel in Beirut, and the Mayflower Park Hotel in Seattle.
The
Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, known locally as simply
The Mayflower, is a historic
hotel in downtown
Washington, DC located on
Connecticut Avenue NW, two blocks north of
Farragut Square (one block north of the
Farragut North Metro station). It is the largest luxury hotel in the U.S.
capital and a rival of the nearby
Willard InterContinental and
Hay-Adams Hotels.
The Mayflower was built by Allen E. Walker, the land developer behind
Brookland and other residential neighborhoods of Washington. Nicknamed the "Grande Dame of Washington" at its opening in 1925, the hotel was said to contain more gold trim than any other building except the
Library of Congress. An extensive renovation completed in 1988 uncovered decorative effects, including a skylight, which had been covered up to mask the hotel's opulence during the
Great Depression.
Shortly after opening, the Mayflower hosted a ball for the
presidential inauguration of
Calvin Coolidge. Although Coolidge himself never arrived, the hotel has sponsored a ball every Inauguration Day since.
Franklin D. Roosevelt worked on his famous "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" inaugural address while a guest. His successor
Harry S. Truman resided there for the first 90 days of his presidential term while the
White House was undergoing renovations, and declared his intention to run for the presidency in 1948 at a dinner there. The Mayflower's lounge, Town & Country, has long been a social center for Washington's elite.
FBI Director
J. Edgar Hoover was said to lunch there daily for over twenty years. In
1975, the Mayflower was the site of former
Peace Corps and
Office of Economic Opportunity director
Sargent Shriver's formal announcement that he'd run for
President of the United States.
The hotel came into spotlight several times in relation to political-sex scandals.
President Kennedy's mistress,
Judith Campbell Exner was established in the hotel and sneaked into the
White House when his wife was away.
Monica Lewinsky was staying there when
her affair with
Bill Clinton was in the news.
On March 10, 2008,
The New York Times reported that
New York Governor
Eliot Spitzer had on the evening of February 13 patronized a high class
prostitution service called
Emperors Club VIP and met for over two hours with a $1,000-an-hour
call girl in room 871 of the Mayflower Hotel, where Spitzer registered under the pseudonym George Fox, but with his own
Fifth Avenue Manhattan address. The
resulting scandal caused him to announce his resignation on March 12, 2008.
Further Information
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