Lodge · Quinault, Washington · Built 1926
Lake Quinault Lodge
A shingled lodge on the south shore of Lake Quinault in the Olympic rain forest, designed by Robert Reamer and built in fifty-three days in 1926 for a Hoquiam lumberman; Franklin Roosevelt lunched in its Great Room in 1937.
History
Settlers on the south shore of Lake Quinault had a two-story hotel by 1903, built by Jack Ewell and later run by the Olson family, who gave the settlement their name for a time, and then by the Seamans. It burned in August 1924, and a plain temporary building, later called the Annex, took in guests. Ralph Emerson, a Hoquiam lumberman and mill owner, bought out the Seamans and decided the lake deserved a real resort. He hired Robert C. Reamer, architect of the Old Faithful Inn, who had moved to Seattle as chief architect of the Metropolitan Building Company and had just designed Emerson's hotel in Hoquiam. Crews began on June 9, 1926, under a superintendent who had worked for Reamer at Yellowstone. Lumber, brick and hundreds of windows, all made in Hoquiam by the Swedish immigrant Ivar Berquist, came over fifty miles of gravel road, and bonfires let the men work through the night ahead of the autumn rains. Fifty-three days later, on August 18, five hundred guests celebrated the opening.
The lodge, on Forest Service land under a special use permit, became the Olympic Peninsula's main resort. On October 1, 1937, Franklin Roosevelt stopped here for lunch during the tour that preceded his signing of the bill creating Olympic National Park. Emerson sold in 1939, the lodge closed during the Second World War, and the Walker family ran it afterward. A dining room was added in 1966–67, a motel wing about 1972 and lakeside units in 1990. Aramark bought the lodge in 1988, and it was listed on the National Register in 1998.
“Bonfires were lit at night so that the crews could work around the clock to complete construction before the impending seasonal rains.”
Architecture
The lodge is a two-story wood-frame building clad in natural cedar shingles under steep roofs with small shed dormers, laid out in a shallow V: two wings reach toward the lake and two lower story-and-a-half wings frame an entrance court on the road side. A belvedere with a pyramidal roof crowns the center, topped by a weather vane of an Indian shooting a bear. The nomination reads the design as rustic with Colonial Revival touches, small-paned sash, bay windows and modillions, and a Tudor hint in the roofs and chimneys. The Great Room fills the main block, with fir-sheathed posts, a beamed fir ceiling stenciled in Mayan-looking Art Deco patterns, a large brick fireplace and wicker furniture believed to be original.
What to look for
- Stenciled Art Deco patterns on the Great Room beams
- The belvedere and its bear-hunter weather vane
- Brick fireplace with raised hearth
- The Roosevelt nook in the original dining room
- The rain gauge marked in feet on the chimney
Setting
The lodge looks north across a broad lawn to Lake Quinault on the southwest side of the Olympic Peninsula, in the Olympic National Forest at the edge of Olympic National Park. Trails into the Quinault rain forest, with its giant Sitka spruce and western redcedar, start across the road. The small Quinault townsite, ranger station and old Annex are nearby.
Timeline
- 1903Jack Ewell builds the first hotel on the south shore
- 1924First hotel burns in August
- 1926Construction begins June 9; lodge opens August 18
- 1937Franklin D. Roosevelt lunches at the lodge on October 1
- 1966–1967Dining room addition built
- 1988Bought by Aramark
- 1998Listed on the National Register on July 9
Where sources differ
- The nomination names the construction superintendent George E. Garrison; Wikipedia says Roy Garrison. The manager appears as both Ralph and Frank McNeil in the nomination.
- Wikipedia says the Higleys bought the first hotel from Ewell in 1905; the nomination dates Ewell's hotel to 1903 and does not mention the Higleys as owners.
