Haunted Mayflower Park Hotel, Seattle: The Presence in Room 1120

The Mayflower Park Hotel has stood at Fourth Avenue and Olive Way since 1927, a twelve-story brick building that opened as the Bergonian. It has been run by the same family partnership since 1974, belongs to Historic Hotels of America and is home to Oliver’s, the lounge that has been pouring cocktails by its tall windows since 1976. It is connected to Westlake Center, a few blocks from Pike Place Market, and it is one of the gentler haunted hotels in Seattle.

Its ghost story is unusually well dated. In April 1997 the Seattle Times reported that three unrelated guests in Room 1120 had complained within a few weeks of a strange presence. All of them called it benign. The general manager slept in the room himself and felt nothing, but the story stuck, and guests have been requesting Room 1120 ever since. Below we cover what has been reported, the hotel’s history and how to ask for the room.

The ghosts of the Mayflower Park Hotel

Room 1120 and the 1997 complaints

The story starts with a Seattle Times column by Jean Godden in April 1997. Within a few weeks, three guests who did not know each other, all booked into Room 1120, told the hotel they had felt a strange presence. One said, “I feel as if someone is in there with me.” A visitor from Japan asked to move to another room. All three described whatever it was as benign.

General manager Marc Nowak decided to check for himself and slept in the room. “I didn’t feel a thing,” he said. “Maybe I’m not tuned in.” The column ended with him looking for a psychic in the Yellow Pages. The room is on the southwest corner of the eleventh floor, and it has been the hotel’s ghost story ever since.

The older gentleman

Later accounts give the presence a shape. The Seattle Times’ city guide describes an older gentleman, often seen in Room 1120, who guests believe has been there since the hotel opened in 1927. Guests describe objects that move and the feeling that someone is watching them.

Our original Seattle page described an older man on the sixth floor who watches people as they sleep, and who has unsettled some guests enough to change rooms in the night. It also described a more playful spirit in Room 1120 with sounds, a vanishing mop bucket and sudden appearances. Whichever floor he favors, the stories agree he means no harm.

A prankster, not a poltergeist

Nothing at the Mayflower Park is tied to a known death or tragedy, and the hotel does not promote its ghost. What it has is a run of guest reports, starting with those three in 1997, that all describe the same quiet presence in the same corner room. That makes it a good choice if you want a haunted room without anything too dark behind it.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• Room 1120: The southwest corner room on the eleventh floor where the 1997 reports began. Request it when you book.
• The sixth floor: Where older accounts place the gentleman who watches guests sleep.
• Oliver's: The lounge off the lobby. During Prohibition this space was the hotel’s drugstore.
• The upper corridors: Guests describe the feeling of being watched in the quiet halls late at night.

History of Mayflower Park Hotel

Seattle builder Stephen Berg put up the hotel in six months for $750,000, to designs by the firm Stuart and Wheatley. It opened early, on July 16, 1927, as the Bergonian, with 240 rooms, during the boom years of the Roaring Twenties. During Prohibition, the corner space that is now Oliver’s was the hotel’s drugstore.

Berg sold the hotel in 1933, and it became the Hotel Mayflower. Ownership changed several times over the next four decades. In 1974 a limited partnership bought it for $1.1 million and gave control to Birney and Marie Dempcy, who renamed it the Mayflower Park Hotel and renovated it, adding an entrance on Fourth Avenue.

Oliver’s opened on June 26, 1976, and is often described as Seattle’s first daylight bar, with tall windows over the street. When Westlake Center was planned, early designs called for demolishing the hotel; the ownership group went to court and saved it. The mall opened in 1988 with a direct connection to the hotel.

Today the hotel has 160 rooms and six meeting rooms, and it is a member of Historic Hotels of America.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Ask for Room 1120 when you book, and remind the front desk when you arrive.
• Have a cocktail at Oliver’s before heading upstairs. It is one of Seattle’s classic hotel bars.
• Ask staff if they have heard any new stories about the eleventh floor. The hotel does not promote the ghost, but people who work there know it.
• Use the hotel’s connection to Westlake Center and take the monorail to Seattle Center, or walk a few blocks to Pike Place Market.
• Pair your stay with the Arctic Club Hotel, where the elevators are said to stop on the fifth floor by themselves.

More haunted hotels nearby

• Arctic Club Hotel, Seattle: Congressman Zioncheck and the fifth floor
• Hotel Andra, Seattle: a few blocks away, with phantom jazz parties upstairs
• Hotel Sorrento, Seattle: Room 408 and the ghost of Alice B. Toklas
• Haunted hotels in Washington
• Haunted hotels in Seattle

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• Seattle Times: Favorite haunt may be a hotel (1997)
• The Ticket (Seattle Times): Seattle's most famous haunted hotels (2025)
• Wikipedia: Mayflower Park Hotel
• Historic Hotels of America: Mayflower Park history
• Mayflower Park Hotel (official site)

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