Lotte Hotel Seattle

Lotte Hotel Seattle opened in September 2020 inside the 44-story F5 Tower on Fifth Avenue, the first hotel to ever operate in a building whose original operator had abandoned the project in 2017. Philippe Starck designed the 189 rooms and the restored 1908 church next door, now the hotel's ballroom.

The place

The hotel occupies the lower 16 floors of the 44-story F5 Tower on Fifth Avenue in downtown Seattle, a purpose-built high-rise that also incorporates the restored 1908 United First Methodist Church next door into its footprint.

The concept

Lotte's second US property was designed almost entirely by Philippe Starck, from the guest rooms to the restored church hall repurposed as the Sanctuary Grand Ballroom, complete with its original stained glass and pipe organ. The project had a false start: the tower was originally slated to open as an SLS hotel in 2017 before that operator withdrew, leaving the hotel space unopened until the Korean group Lotte took it over and finally opened it in September 2020, in the middle of the pandemic. It was the first hotel to ever operate in the building. The result is a downtown high-rise with a genuinely distinct identity within Seattle's luxury tier: Starck's mix of glossy surfaces, timber accents and oversized art objects nods to the region's logging history without leaning on Pacific Northwest cliché, and the church-turned-ballroom is one of the more unusual event spaces in the city.

Dining & wellness

Charlotte Restaurant & Lounge occupies the top floor, pairing Pacific Northwest cuisine with views over Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains. Le SPA de LOTTE, on the third floor, runs treatments under the Biologique Recherche line alongside a Technogym-equipped fitness center.