Skip ads and navigation
Advertising
Our network sites seattlepi.comHelp

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Airport hotel with a swank history closes

By SAM SKOLNIK
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Back in the day, the hotel catered to cavorting off-duty pilots and stewardesses, U.S. senators and music stars ranging from the Rolling Stones to Johnny Cash to Tina Turner.

"It was the place in Seattle," said Frank Hansen, the hotel's last honorary guest.

Only the hotel, the Radisson Hotel Seattle Airport, is in SeaTac.

The storied hotel, which opened as the Hyatt House in 1960 and turned into the Radisson in 1989, celebrated its last night Monday. The land has been bought up by the Port of Seattle and will turn into part of a light rail line going from Seattle to nearby Sea-Tac Airport.

Veteran workers told stories of the Hyatt's old days, when the bar was the epicenter of SeaTac night life and was hip enough to draw patrons from Seattle and Tacoma.

The Hyatt House was just the third Hyatt airport hotel, then a new concept, which quickly caught on.

"It started a revolution in the business," said Richard Boustead, the Radisson's general manager for the last three years.

It had everything stodgy old hotels in Seattle had, Boustead said, including fine dining at Hugo's Restaurant, the swank bar, and an outdoor pool.

And at the corner of South 170th Street and Pacific Highway South, it was a stone's throw from the airport.

In its early years, the hotel had served as a secret hideaway for the likes of Ray Charles and Bill Cosby and was the setting for the 1965 film "The Slender Thread," starring Anne Bancroft and Sidney Poitier.

And it was a swinging joint, said concierge Chuck Cruise, who has worked there since 1973. During his first year as a 16-year-old bellhop, Cruise recalled one evening when the rock group Sly and the Family Stone was staying at the hotel after a local show. Women -- groupies, Cruise believes -- were running from room to room, wearing nothing but boas.

"I'd never seen anything like that before," he said.

Webtowns
More headlines and info from SeaTac.

P-I reporter Sam Skolnik can be reached at 206-448-8334 or samskolnik@seattlepi.com.
Add P-I Local headlines to
My web site My Yahoo! Google *More options
advertising
INSIDE SEATTLEPI.COM

Day in Pictures
The German chancellor and more
David Horsey
Giving Chinese dissidents a choice
'Mad Men' returns
Cable hit rides wave of publicity
ADVERTISING
LOCAL HEADLINES
· 520 tolls may stretch from I-5 to Bellevue
· Fifth dental death in 3 years
· Plane hopper has worn out cute welcome
· Stepson faces jury in for-hire slaying
· Agencies asked to ease safety rules
· Officer's firing unjustified, board says
· State race for public lands chief could get rough
· Christians taking on role as environmentalists
· Group proposes climate-saving strategy
· Legacy House turns 10
· Mercer Island residents sue to stop Tent City
· Principal charged with raping teen
*more
AP LOCAL HEADLINES
· Judge OKs emergency grazing program, with limits
· Calif. requires ships to cut pollution off coast
· Toll on 520 bridge could be as high as $3.80
· WA court gives legal immunity to some stepparents
· Coast Guard: distress call from girl may be hoax
*more
AP WEST HEADLINES
· Grizzly bear attacks woman in Alaska
· Judge OKs emergency grazing program, with limits
· DNA: elk likely source of Mont. livestock disease
· Calif. peak may be named for Sierra Club's Brower
· State highway patrols struggle with big gas bills
*more
Advertising
OUR AFFILIATES
NWsource KOMO
Pacific Publishing

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
101 Elliott Ave. W.
Seattle, WA 98119
(206) 448-8000

Home Delivery: (206) 464-2121 or (800) 542-0820
seattlepi.com serves about 1.7 million unique visitors
and 30 million page views each month.

Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com
©1996-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Terms of Use/Privacy Policy

Hearst Newspapers