Hotel Laube is more than its historic ghost signs on the side of the building and a testament to early 20th-century brick architecture. While the hotel, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has found a second calling as affordable housing units, in its heyday, the hotel was considered “one of the best equipt hotels on the Sound,” according to the Daily Reveille.
Opened in 1904, the 51-room hotel cost around $12,000 to furnish, and boasted an up-to-date kitchen and cafe on the ground floor, according to its 2003 Historic Places application.
Hotel Laube regularly served as the headquarters for the Whatcom County Democratic Party during election years as well as social clubs like the Rosarians, whose mission was to “encourage the culture of roses and the beautifying of our city with this queen of flowers,” according to The Bellingham Herald.
The hotel’s upper floors closed to guests in the early 1980s, while the first floor hosted a number of bars that catered to Bellingham’s music scene, according to The Bellingham Herald.
Today, Bellinghamsters can visit the Old World Deli on the first floor and marvel at the history inside the hotel’s walls.
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Annie Todd is CDN’s criminal justice/enterprise reporter; reach her at annietodd@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 130.
