After 100 years, the Mayflower Hotel, Autograph Collection, continues to be an icon among Washington, D.C., hotels with a storied political history and guests long-devoted to the property.
The hotel celebrated its 100th anniversary Feb. 18 with a major event, just a month after hosting part of this year's presidential inauguration, General Manager Shelly DiMeglio said. The hotel’s team was joined by Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser and Lawrence Horwitz, executive vice president of Historic Hotels of America. Liam Brown, group president, U.S. and Canada at Marriott International, read a speech, and Horwitz read a proclamation from the Grand Ballroom’s presidential balcony.
“It was very dramatic, very exciting, and a great way to really start off many events for our 100 year anniversary with our associates and with our guests,” DiMeglio said.
The hotel has other events scheduled to celebrate the anniversary through the year, she said. Recently, it hosted more than 40 party planners in its private dining space, the Tolson Restaurant, to give them something they hadn’t seen before. It let them know how integral they’ve been to the success of the hotel in bringing important guests to the property.
One of the upcoming events is a customer gala in the fall, she said. The gala will be a full reception and serve dishes the hotel prepared through the decades while adding modern twists.
The Edgar Bar & Kitchen, named after former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, is serving specialty cocktails through the year with a nod back to Prohibition, during which the hotel opened. The hotel is also serving a signature champagne at its restaurants and banquets with a 100-year label.
The hotel is also offering an exclusive centennial package through which a group can work with the hotel’s event planner to recreate the hotel’s opening gala for their own event.
There’s also a package, called Legacy Suite, with the hotel’s presidential suites, she said. The suites will have memorabilia from over the decades, including fine China, silver, scrapbooks, framed photos and more. The hotel team will set up the room based on the guest’s preferences.
A historic property for modern travelers
When groups come to the Mayflower, they’re there to enjoy the history of the hotel as well as have productive meetings and get business done, DiMeglio said. The hotel caters to modern guests with modern needs while helping them appreciate the history of the property.
The guestrooms have all the modern essentials necessary for a guest’s comfort, including high-speed internet, a comfortable working desk and entertainment options.
“We work hard to make sure that the modern essentials are part of their stay as needed and incorporate them in with the design and the beauty of the hotel,” she said.
Some of the historical touches in the rooms include the wallpaper behind the guestroom beds, she said. The designer took the signatures of celebrities and politicians from the original hotel guestbooks and incorporated them into the wallpaper.
“It really gives a nod to that history and the importance of the guests who have stayed here,” she said.
DiMeglio said she found the menus from the hotel’s first restaurants, starting with Nicholas, a formal dining room, all the way through its Town and Country and the current Edgar. The menus now rotate every season to keep up with trending and popular tastes, but there’s always a flavor that’s a nod to the history of the hotel. That includes the hotel’s famous clam chowder that has remained with the hotel for decades.
“I heard a story that there was a previous chef that actually thought it would be a good idea to take the clam chowder off the menu and do something different,” she said. “There was actually an uproar in Washington, D.C., and the clam chowder was promptly put back on the menu and has remained ever since.”
Another popular item is the hotel’s banana bread, which the chefs know by heart, she said.
Personal connections
The Mayflower Hotel is a popular location for weddings, DiMeglio said. One of her favorite recent weddings was a bride whose parents and grandparents were married at the hotel.
“This is the third generation, and [the bride] wore her grandmother’s gown that had been remade for her, and it was just absolutely beautiful,” she said. “It was so wonderful for the Mayflower to host the family, but what a legacy for the family to have as well, to have this history as part of their family now.”
Some groups have been coming to the hotel for more than 50 years, she said, and of the 400 associates working at the hotel, 55 people have worked there for 30 years or longer and a handful have worked there for more than 40.
“We have many guests that ask for a housekeeper by name or bartender by name, and they've gotten to know these associates in banquets and other areas, and it really feels like coming back home when they come to visit,” she said. “They enjoy seeing familiar faces and knowing they'll be well taken care of. That's a really important part of our culture here at the Mayflower.”
Many guests call to set up bringing their parents or grandparents back to the hotel because they attended an important event at the hotel, DiMeglio said.
“They want to bring them back for the memory and to stay in the hotel and walk through the promenade,” she said. “We welcome those guests and those families to help them recreate the memories.”
Sometimes guests have a more physical connection with the hotel. DiMeglio said she receives messages every day from people who have a piece of memorabilia that they would like to ship to the hotel and have displayed.
Just recently, the hotel received a silver coffee pot someone found in their storage and wanted to give back to the hotel, she said.
“It was tarnished and black and had a couple of dents on the bottom, and we polished it up,” she said. “It's absolutely beautiful sitting in our showcase here on our mezzanine level, and we'll put a little note as to who donated it and where it came from.”
Historical significance
The Mayflower Hotel opened Feb. 18, 1925, and it has been host to multiple historic events and figures. To start, it hosted the inaugural ball for President Calvin Coolidge in 1925, but Coolidge and his wife missed the ball as they were mourning the death of their son. The Mayflower Hotel served as the site of each president’s inaugural ball through 1981 and has since hosted events for the inauguration as it grew in size.
Pilot Charles Lindbergh received the Hubbard Medal from the National Geographic Society at a breakfast held at the hotel in 1927. Years later, in 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt wrote his inaugural speech in room 776, letting the American people know, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
In 1957, King Mohammed V of Morocco hosted a dinner for President Dwight Eisenhower and First Lady Mamie Eisenhower. Later on, then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was a regular at the hotel’s Carvery Restaurant and Coffee Shop, dining there nearly every working day until his death in 1972.
During the Cold War, the hotel was a popular location for American and foreign intelligence agents to gather information and conduct covert operations. The Mayflower Hotel even served as a temporary embassy for the Chinese government in 1973, requiring secure and private spaces for diplomatic activities.
The Mayflower has also played a part in several political scandals over the years, including being where Judith Campbell Exner, who claimed to have had an affair with President John F. Kennedy, reportedly kept a room as well as where President Bill Clinton was photographed hugging intern Monica Lewinsky at a fundraiser. The hotel was also the site of Lewinsky’s deposition.