Hotels By: AlbinoFlea
Mayflower Hotel
Immediately after its opening in 1925, the Mayflower Hotel was known as the "Grande Dame of Washington, D.C.," boasting more gold than any other building in the country except for the Library of Congress. Just four blocks from the White House, this grand, historic hotel remains not only a place to make history but to absorb it; throughout the last 80 years the hotel has hosted events that have changed the course of human affairs. An "inaugural address" in the truest sense of the term, the hotel has hosted every U.S. Presidential inaugural ball since Calvin Coolidge. FRD used the Mayflower as a retreat to work on his 1933 inaugural address, Harry Truman resided here for the first 90 days of his presidential term and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover lunched at the Mayflower nearly every day he was in town. A long list of celebrities and international royalty have also made the Mayflower their DC home, but the true star of the hotel is the building itself. Renovation work in the early 1990s led to the discovery of a 25-foot skylight blacked out at the beginning of World War II and two large murals by artist Edward Lanning were uncovered.
