Commentary

A new Davenport for a new century
Our View: A toast! A toast, to Walt and Karen Worthy.
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John Webster
For the editorial board

If only Louis Davenport could see what has become of his hotel.

Walt and Karen Worthy, a husband-and-wife team whose daring matches Davenport's, have given Spokane a gift for the ages.

Seventeen years after it closed, The Davenport Hotel is reopening. It is not the same hotel that Davenport opened in 1914. It's better. It boasts the high-tech luxuries of a brand-new hotel, amid the architectural splendor of a European palace.

It's a palace intended for the community to treasure. Presidents may visit, as they did in the Davenport's storied past -- in fact, President and Laura Bush have been invited. But the ballrooms, restaurants, shops and that spectacular lobby are going to become a luxury living room where the people of Spokane will put on the airs of a city that has rediscovered pride.

The hotel's rooms are priced, at $99 and up, for the local market as well as business travelers and the upper crust. "It's not going to be an elitist hotel," Worthy says, "but the hotel will be elite."

The Davenport's 260 new employees, who have spent the summer training in the arts of luxury-hotel service, are numerous enough, Worthy hopes, to earn the facility a four-star rating.

When Louis Davenport built the hotel his ambition was bigger than his $2 million budget, which he overshot by $1million. Even so, he had to cut corners. For example, he painted the ballroom ceiling plain white, veiling its ornate splendor. The Worthys have refinished the plaster ornamentation in gold leaf, soft pastels and varied shades of white that simply take the breath away.

Davenport, it is said, intended to bring the world to Spokane. So the hotel's interior features Spanish Renaissance, Italian Neoclassical, French Neoclassical, Venetian and Elizabethan decor. Worthy has restored this, with a special touch: He intended to bring Spokane to the world in this building, by relying as often as he could on local crafts people and suppliers. Northwest Bedding supplied beds. Pella supplied windows. Petr Shiva, a member of Spokane's Russian immigrant community, is a master craftsman in the lost arts of woodcarving and plaster ornamentation. Shiva is among the 300 local laborers who are working to erase the marks of time.

The Worthys had never run a hotel, let alone restored one of the world's classic hotels. No bank, Worthy laughs, would have taken a chance on them. So they sold a lifetime of assets from their careers in commercial real estate to raise the money.

Why'd they do it? "I was just looking for another hill to climb," said Worthy. His wife adds that "Walt's always been one to step up whenever people say, `you can't do that."'

And now, along with the gift of this magnificent hotel, our century's answer to Louis Davenport offers a challenge to the city to which he has given so much: "We need to have more civic pride." We need, Walt Worthy says, to plant more flowers, tend the trees, pull the weeds, create more beauty, volunteer more time to this place that is our home.

The original Louis Davenport is no longer around to say "Amen" or offer a toast. So we will: Walt and Karen Worthy, we hope you make a fortune, for you have made us proud.

John Webster/For the editorial board

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