To spot the Benson Hotel, look for the grand corner building with a striking green mansard roof, tall rows of windows, and ornate white-and-brick architecture standing proudly along Southwest Broadway.
Take a good look at the Benson Hotel and let your imagination travel back in time-this place isn’t just another fancy building, it’s practically Portland royalty. Behind those elegant windows and the striking French-style roof, stories swirl like champagne bubbles at a gala. It all started more than a century ago, when this corner plot first hosted the Hotel Oregon. Now, picture this: it’s the early 1900s, streetcars rattle by, and the city is buzzing with excitement over the 1905 Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition. The original building wasn’t even meant to be a hotel-Chinese entrepreneurs Moy Back Yin and Goon Dip started it as an office building, but smelling opportunity, the Wright-Dickinson Company swooped in, finished it as a hotel, and opened the doors just in time for the crowds. Apparently, “build it and they will come” should be the city motto!
Business boomed, and soon the Hotel Oregon had an annex sprouting out back. Then, in 1911, as the city’s population soared, enter Simon Benson: timber baron, philanthropist, and a guy with a nose for opportunity (and perhaps for strong cocktails, since he also gave Portland its iconic Benson Bubblers). Teaming up with Wright-Dickinson, Benson set out to build a modern luxury wing on the northern edge of the block. The architectural firm of Doyle, Patterson & Beach designed it with chic French Second Empire flair-think Portland with a dash of Parisian pizzazz. Their inspiration? The Blackstone Hotel in Chicago, giving Portland a taste of the big city.
When the new wing opened in 1913, they timed it down to the minute-a telegram from Washington, D.C., signaled they should fling open the doors at the exact moment Woodrow Wilson took his oath of office as President. Imagine tuxedoed staff watching pocket watches and opening the halls with a flourish. For the next year and a half, the two hotels-old and new-operated together, the block positively humming with visitors, laughter, and the clink of glasses.
Then Simon Benson took over completely and, in a move worthy of his own brand, separated the New Oregon Hotel into its own entity, proudly naming it after himself. The legacy stuck. By the Roaring Twenties, it’d survived Prohibition, economic jolts, and multiple ownership changes. The original Hotel Oregon building closed for a while, only to rise again in the 1930s. Come 1957, Western Hotels doubled the Benson’s size with a swanky new annex (including the legendary Trader Vic’s tiki bar on the ground floor, where local imaginations no doubt traveled even further than this tour).
As you stand here, remember: the Benson Hotel has seen the Beatles, presidents, and even a rock legend’s final moments-Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell passed away here in 2008, a somber note in a building with no shortage of drama and celebration. Today, it’s Coast Hotels & Resorts at the helm, now with the Hilton Curio Collection badge of honor. All these years later, the Benson still draws guests with a promise: that every night here, you’ll sleep among stories. So maybe check under your pillow for a little piece of history-or at least a very fancy mint.
