The Building
A vacant lot of memory.
Built in 1890, one year after the Great Fire burned downtown to the ground, by architect William E. Boone, a direct descendant of Daniel Boone. As the Hotel Vendome it sold respectable beds to Klondike-bound miners while psychics like Venus the Gypsy read palms on the lower floors, satisfaction or no fee.
In the 1940s it became the Seven Seas Hotel and Tavern, run by “Mom” Avery, remembered as a friend to sailors and a formidable bouncer. A pistol range and a union hall sat stacked in the basements. In 1966 the entire northern half of the building was demolished. What stands today is less than half of Boone’s original.
In 1985 the ground floor became the Lusty Lady, the famously pun-slinging, women-run peep show whose pink marquee traded jokes with the Seattle Art Museum across the street for twenty-five years. It closed in 2010. The sign panels went to MOHAI. The doors were boarded.
We bought the building in 2023. We are working on a world-class art venue for the site, and while the plans take shape we are letting the public in. You walk through it the way we have: with a flashlight, a hardhat, and the original 1890 brick exposed to the air.
