Post Mortem: The Mayflower
IT MAY NO LONGER be “Washington’s Finest Hotel,” but that hardly matters. Its ground floor is still home to Cartier, and after dark the glow of its cream-colored façade still lends a quiet elegance to the block of Connecticut Avenue above L Street. The Mayflower is, without question, the grande dame of the city’s grand hotels.
Had it not been for the miscalculations and misfortunes of an ambitious Washington real estate developer, though, the Mayflower might be known today as the Hotel Walker. When Allen E. Walker began building the hotel in 1922, he estimated that it would cost $6.2 million; it was said to be the largest private construction project in the city’s history. But by the time the 11-story hotel was completed and furnished in 1925, its cost had soared to more than twice that amount. Walker had been forced to bail out, and the new owners had renamed it the Mayflower.
Within just a few years, however, the Mayflower’s owners were unable to make payments to their bondholders, and by 1934 the hotel was bankrupt. It was reorganized the following year, and over the next three decades the Mayflower changed hands five tirnes. The last time was in 1965, when a syndicate of wealthy Washingtonians led by the late William Cohen bought it for a reported $14 million — just a little more than it had originally cost.
This article originally appeared in the June 1987 issue of Regardie’s.
Bill Hogan