HENRY FORD VISITED SEATTLE in 1909 to show off his Model T at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. 

A few years later, in an effort to bring production closer to markets around the country, Ford picked Seattle, a young city with a booming population, to build a Model T assembly plant and a school with a dormitory for engineers. These pieces of automotive history in Seattle are both still standing, repurposed.

Today, the former Ford factory in South Lake Union is a Public Storage facility, and the school in Uptown is a 59-room boutique hotel, the MarQueen. 

“It’s rare to find a hotel with a story,” says MarQueen owner Renee Fisher. “It sets us apart from the Westin.”

The three-story brick building opened in 1918 as the Seattle Engineering School, then it was converted into the 70-unit MarQueen Apartments in 1926. Fisher’s parents, Ray and Linda Russo, bought the MarQueen and turned it into a hotel in 1998, with some of the original rooms becoming first-floor offices and commercial spaces. It has stayed in her family since. (The MarQueen also holds bragging rights to Seattle’s first underground parking garage, an original feature of the building.) 

Fisher, 43, remembers the MarQueen Hotel’s grand opening: Her parents lined up Model Ts out front and hired a Charlie Chaplin impersonator to help conjure up the early 20th century. She spent summers in high school working at the hotel. 

“Been here since I was 16. I was stuffing envelopes. Worked my way up,” says Fisher, who handles operations for the family business. “I’ve literally worked here my whole life.”

Over the decades, she’s borne witness to the changing neighborhood. There used to be a Pagliacci’s across the street where Fisher would grab lunch, and a Blockbuster farther down the block. The performers from the now defunct Teatro ZinZanni stayed at the MarQueen. Fisher remembers seeing them in the lobby; they were … eccentric

Last fall, the MarQueen completed a $4.6 million renovation that pays tribute to its automotive history — without hitting you over the head with a hubcap. “People come in and have no idea, unless you’re looking for it,” says interior designer Marisa Weber, owner of Cusack + Co. It’s quiet nods, like the shape of a mirror that suggests a hood ornament, or the curvature of the enameled desk lamp reminiscent of a wheel well. Ford paint chips from 1966 inspired the color palette. In guest rooms, a vintage Ford key is framed as art.

Other design choices were drawn from the era, if not necessarily from cars. Take the pinstriping on the custom carpeting and headboards, which bring to mind a tailored suit. Or the working rotary phones and leathertop desks that reference the history of the building.

In the renovation, none of the hotel’s original walls were moved. Room sizes remain 450 square feet for standard rooms and 600 to 650 square feet for the suites. The hardwood floors, marble front steps and the terrazzo in the lobby are all original. The banisters and wood trim got a coat of deep navy paint.

The MarQueen’s 1918 plumbing system, however, was completely re-piped. “It was time,” says Fisher, $800,000 later. “We tried to go as long as we could.” The hotel stayed open during construction, and the work was done one side of the building at a time.

What else is different? Everything inside the lath and plaster walls. New paint, new lighting, new window treatments, new furniture. The bathrooms were gutted and new hand-laid hex tiles in the floors read “1918.” The kitchen in each guest room was closed off — an operations decision, Fisher says — and the doorway blocked with a giant mirror.

Fisher and Weber are perusing the happy hour menu in the MarQueen’s lounge, which takes its name from the Model T’s nickname: the Tin Lizzie. On any given evening, it is peopled with a mix of hotel guests, neighborhood residents and folks attending functions at nearby Seattle Center.

The two women first met at pre-K mom’s night at their daughters’ school — and the two became friends and eventual MarQueen collaborators. It’s a pairing that fits nicely in the MarQueen’s history; Fisher’s mom and her best friend were the hotel’s original interior designers in 1998.

”We want the MarQueen to represent Seattle’s history,” Fisher says. “This property has a beautiful story, and it’s so fun to see roots like this preserved and continue to tell a story to our guests and locals.”