Luxury Hotels Atlas / Places / United States / Washington, D.C. / The Mayflower Hotel, Autograph Collection
The Mayflower Hotel, Autograph Collection
Washington, D.C., District of Columbia, United States · Autograph Collection · Near Luxury
Harry Truman called it Washington's "Second Best Address" after the White House: the Beaux-Arts Mayflower by Warren & Wetmore and Robert F. Beresford opened February 18, 1925, and hosted Calvin Coolidge's inaugural ball two weeks later. Inaugural balls returned here every four years through 1981, locking in the nickname Hotel of Presidents. It remains the largest luxury hotel in D.C. and the longest continuously operating hotel in the metro area, a block from Farragut Square.
- 581 rooms
- Opened 1925
- Neighborhood: Downtown
- Architect: Warren & Wetmore
About The Mayflower Hotel, Autograph Collection
- President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt worked on the line "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself" in Room 776 on March 3, 1933, the night before his inauguration.
- Harry W. Colmery drafted the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, the GI Bill, on Mayflower stationery in Room 570 during a December 1943 American Legion meeting.
- Nazi saboteur George Dasch checked into Room 351 in June 1942 and promptly betrayed Operation Pastorius, collapsing Germany's U-boat sabotage plot.
- Senator Huey Long leased eight suites from January 1932 to March 1934, turning the hotel into his Washington power base.
- A charter Historic Hotels of America member since 1989, the Mayflower joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
History
The Mayflower Hotel, Autograph Collection opened in 1925 as one of Washington, District of Columbia’s defining grand hotels, with a Beaux-Arts design by Warren & Wetmore and Robert F. Beresford and an opening date of February 18, 1925. It quickly became a stage for American political theater: the hotel hosted President Calvin Coolidge’s inaugural ball just two weeks after opening, and it continued to host inaugural balls every four years until 1981. That early political role helped cement its nickname as Washington’s “Hotel of Presidents.” According to the National Register listing, the Mayflower was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1983, and Historic Hotels of America has recognized it as a charter member since 1989.
The hotel’s guest list reads like a century of national power. Herbert Hoover set up his presidential planning offices there in 1928, Vice President Charles Curtis lived there during his term, and Huey Long made the hotel his Washington base for more than two years. Franklin D. Roosevelt stayed in the hotel before his inauguration in 1933. In the postwar era, the Mayflower remained a political clubhouse of sorts: J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson were near-daily diners at the Rib Room for two decades, and the hotel later figured in episodes involving the Pentagon Papers, Watergate-era testimony, and campaign-season gatherings for figures from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama.
Today, the hotel’s heritage identity still anchors the experience. Historic Hotels of America describes a soaring lobby, the Grand Ballroom, and a restoration of that ballroom, while also noting the property’s continuing role as a downtown address near the White House. The result is a hotel whose history is not just preserved in placards, but embedded in the way Washington remembers itself.
The setting
At 1127 Connecticut Avenue NW, one block from Farragut Square. The White House is a thirteen-minute walk. Warren and Wetmore's 1925 Mayflower still stands here.
Restaurants and bars
- Edgar — Restaurant · American
Amenities
- Fitness center
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