written by Lauren Kramer | photography by Cole Massey/Hotel Hardware
Dayton’s new Hotel Hardware is a polished boutique hotel whose rooms boast 15-foot ceilings, exposed brick walls, hardwood floors and leather saddles on the walls. Downstairs, guests mingle with locals over sophisticated cocktails in the Bobcat Room and gather for coffee in the coffee bar overlooking Main Street. But prior to its March 2025 opening and the nine months of extensive renovations that preceded it, the 135-year-old building was tired, dilapidated and direly in need of new direction. It took the vision and drive of Padraic Slattery, a historical preservationist from Seattle, to complete the transformation. He created a designer-grade, boutique hotel with a unique design aesthetic that speaks to Dayton’s past. Whimsical touches include Paulie Two Paws, a taxidermied black bear on the lobby wall, stirrup-shaped door knockers, exterior door handles shaped like an outstretched hand and a huge, colorful mural by Spokane artist Daniel Lopez on the outside wall. Jacob Weinhard, under whose watch the building began in 1890 and who is buried a mile away, looks down approvingly from an oil painting in the lobby.
DRINKS
At the Bobcat Room, Slattery infuses the menu with his longstanding passion for cocktails. His elevated elixirs, decorated with fresh herbs and carrying aromas of toasted cedar and burnt cinnamon, were inspired by years of Seattle life and frequent trips to Vancouver, BC. A taxidermied bobcat looks down from above the bar, and House of Hackney wallpaper, coupled with vintage-style lighting and sleek hardware floors, creates an atmosphere of elegant, timeless sophistication.
HISTORY
Over the course of its lifetime, Hotel Hardware has been a hardware store, a drug store, a saloon, a restaurant, a lodge, a social club and a Safeway. It’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places and, under Slattery’s stewardship, recently won the Excellence on Main Award from the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation.
ACCOMMODATIONS
The fifteen rooms feel large and airy thanks to high ceilings, 10-foot glass windows, refinished red brick walls and sleek, dark hardwood floors. All have private bathrooms with tiled showers or tubs, lavatories with bidets and flat-screen TVs mounted on the walls. Soft robes hang on the walls, Handmade La Conner bath products are stocked in the bathrooms and decor is uncluttered, accentuating the airiness of the space.
NEARBY
Don’t miss a visit to two historic treasures a quick walk away. The 1881 Dayton Historic Depot is the oldest standing depot in the state and still contains a working freight scale, along with other period railway and retail items. A few blocks away, the Boldman House Museum, built in 1880, is also open to the public for free tours. Owned by members of the Boldman family for eighty-seven years, the house is a rich repository of 1912 life in Dayton, full of their original furniture, periodicals, kitchenware and clothing. When the last Boldman family member died in 1999, she left the home and gardens in the care of the Dayton Historical Depot Society, to serve as a lasting educational showpiece.
235 E. MAIN ST.
DAYTON
www.hotelhardware.com
