Spokane’s early hotels once carried the weight of a city on the rise, their lobbies alive with the ringing of desk bells, the clink of keys being slid across polished check-in counters, and the low murmur of guests drifting in after long journeys. For decades, it was a constant rhythm shaped by workers, wanderers, and families passing through. But as Spokane evolved, so did these buildings, trading the revolving door of hotel hospitality for the steady warmth of permanent homes. What was once a place of arrivals and departures now settles into the soft hum of residential life that echoes through hallways.
The Hotel Upton: From Transient Housing to the Grand Coulee Apartments
Occupying a prominent corner at First Avenue and Cedar Street, the Hotel Upton, now the Grand Coulee Apartments, stands as one of Spokane’s clearest examples of the Single Room Occupancy model that shaped the city’s early development. These SRO buildings functioned as essential housing for the transient laborers who flocked to the region for mining, logging, and railroad work.
Built in 1910 during Spokane’s most intense decade of growth, the Hotel Upton served as a classic SRO designed by architect Loren L. Rand for Andrew Laidlaw’s Imperial Investment Co., offering 102 modest rooms above ground-floor commercial space for the city’s itinerant workforce. Renamed the Grand Coulee Hotel in 1933, the building maintained its working-class residential role for decades and now continues that legacy as the Grand Coulee Apartments.
Listed individually on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994 and as part of the West Downtown Historic Transportation Corridor in 1995, the building remains one of the most intact examples of Spokane’s early SRO architecture, still functioning much as it was originally intended, only now with long-term tenants instead of nightly guests.
The Ridpath Hotel: From High-Rise Glamour to Workforce Housing
Few Spokane buildings have lived as many lives or survived as many reinventions as the Ridpath Hotel. Originally opened in 1900, the first Ridpath survived a fire in 1902 and was restored, only to be devastated again in 1950 by a blaze that left the structure beyond repair. Its replacement, designed by San Francisco architect Ned Hyman Abrams, rose in 1952 as a sleek International-style tower, with twelve stories of steel-reinforced brick and glass that lifted the Ridpath above surrounding commercial blocks to offer its guests sweeping views across the Spokane and the region.
The tower’s modern systems, exterior-facing rooms, and drive-in basement garage set a new standard for regional hotels, and the later addition of a glass-enclosed thirteenth floor became a defining feature of the building’s silhouette. In the decades that followed, the Ridpath evolved into a four-building complex that linked the 1952 tower with the 1906 Y Building next door, the historic Halliday Building, and the 1963 Executive Court addition, creating an interconnected hotel system that anchored downtown Spokane’s hospitality scene through the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s.
The hotel operated continuously for 108 years, a remarkable distinction among many American hotels, until closing in 2008. For the next ten years, the property sat vacant until a full renovation reopened it in 2018 as the Ridpath Club Apartments, transforming its former hotel rooms into Spokane’s first micro-apartments, featuring compact, efficient units that offered a new model of affordable workforce housing.
The Parsons Hotel: Gothic Revival Becomes Affordable Sanctuary
When W.E. Parsons commissioned construction of his namesake hotel between 1909 and 1910, he envisioned an ornate Gothic Revival and Renaissance Revival-style building that would add a layer of architectural sophistication to the West Downtown corridor. Designed as a 104-room family-oriented hotel, the Parsons Hotel featured the defining characteristics of the era: red brick exterior with terra cotta trim, decorative blind gothic arches rising along the cornice, symmetrical one-over-one windows, and rusticated brick pillars supporting the first floor.
After operating for more than six decades, the hotel fell into decline and was nearly demolished in 1979 before preservation advocates intervened. Instead, the building was rehabilitated and, in 1982, converted into affordable senior housing as the Parsons Apartments, a role it continues to serve today following a substantial remodel in 2016.
The Leland Hotel: Commercial Vernacular Becomes Community Asset
Completed in 1907 at the height of Spokane’s rapid early-century expansion, the Leland Hotel embodied the commercial vernacular architecture that defined downtown’s character. Eugene B. Hyde, the city’s first marshal and police chief, commissioned the four-story buff brick building as a lower-to-middle-income residential hotel, as a practical structure designed to house workers and transient residents rather than wealthy travelers.
The building’s architecture reflected this purpose, with a symmetrical brick facade, voussoired flat-arched window bays, pronounced pressed tin sills, keystones, and a distinctive cornice characterized the straightforward design of early 20th-century commercial construction. For more than seven decades, the Leland fulfilled that role, offering modest long-term lodging to downtown workers until a 1980 remodel transitioned the building into formal apartment use.
Now operating as the Riverside Apartments, the building continues to provide affordable housing. Its preserved brickwork, basalt foundation, and early-century detailing earned it recognition as a contributing property within the East Downtown Historic District, and it was eventually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.
The Engelhorn Hotel: Boarding House Heritage Becomes SODO Commons
When Herman and Emma Engelhorn opened their hotel in 1907, they promised “first-class home cooking” and dignified accommodation to Spokane’s working residents. This three-story brick and basalt building, designed with a symmetric facade and segmental-arched window bays, stood at the edge of downtown’s business core on West 3rd Avenue.
The Engelhorn functioned as both a boarding house and hotel, serving residents who sought extended stays alongside transient guests requiring temporary shelter. This commitment to a communal table lent the property a domestic warmth that set it apart from its neighbors, creating a space where hospitality was a permanent fixture rather than a fleeting service.
In 1945, ownership transferred to S.G. and Stella M. Morin, who rebranded the building as the Danmor Hotel in 1947 before shifting it toward long-term apartment use and operating as Danmor Apartments. The building remained in continuous residential use until it was reported vacant in 2014. A renovation completed around 2017 introduced a fully modernized interior while preserving the 1907 exterior, reopening the property as SoDo Commons with thirty-two studio units.
Spokane’s historic hotels were built on hospitality long before they became residential housing. They welcomed workers, travelers, and newcomers with meals, warmth, and a place to land. Their shift into apartments doesn’t erase that legacy, but carries it forward. The same walls that once held the bustle of check-ins now hold the quieter rhythms of daily life, proving that hospitality isn’t limited to a front desk. It endures in the simple act of providing shelter, stability and a place to call home.
