Beatles' stay at Edgewater helped mark its place in history

By Casey McNerthney, SeattlePI.com, 2009

First Place, Washington Press Association Contest, Arts & Entertainment (2009)

Other than the exceptional view of Elliott Bay, room 272 at The Edgewater hotel seemed like most other high-class hotel suites in 1964.

That is, until Aug. 21, 1964.

As soon as the guests departed, the carpet was pulled up to be sold in squares at a downtown Seattle department store. The bed sheets were removed and the lamps, chairs and king-size bed moved to other suites so future guests wouldn't try to steal them.

Some people believe that the one night the Fab Four stayed at the hotel actually saved the now-landmark building that many expected would be shut down in the 1960s.

Even if there were other factors at work keeping the hotel open, many acknowledge that the Beatles' stay helped cement the Edgewater's place in Seattle history. Every week, current hotel staff say, at least one person asks about staying in that same room.

"Other than being on the water," sales and marketing director Ric Nicholson said, "now the Beatles and rock and roll history is what we hang our hat on."

Hotel takes a chance

A few months after the Beatles set television ratings records by appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show, Feb. 9, 1964, it was announced they'd play in Seattle -- the third stop on their first U.S. tour.

The screaming that started at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport hadn't stopped in each subsequent city where the Liverpool group landed, and Seattle hotel owners were fearful of the riots and damage that could be done by crowds here.

"No one else would take them," recalled Ann Wright, whose late husband, Don Wright, was manager of what was then theEdgewater Inn. "He said, 'We'll get great publicity.'

"Nobody knew how big it really would be."

Wright had been hired in 1962 and was expected to be the last manager of the hotel. It was created as a temporary building, meant to attract visitors for the 1962 World's Fair before codes prevented the practice of building hotels on Seattle piers.

But the hotel opened late. In 1964, Ann Wright said, there were too many staffers on high salaries and not enough visitors to support them. Her husband thought hosting the Beatles would help change course.

After he announced the group would stay there, the hotel insurance carrier dropped its coverage.

Ann Wright recalled that, in a rush, they found a local insurance carrier. The booking agency that brought the Beatles here, Northwest Releasing, tripled its liability insurance. The Edgewater paid $350 a day for three days of insurance.

Don Wright had staff make a plywood fence festooned with barbed wire. King County Sheriff's deputies and Seattle police stood guard behind. Rowdy crowds launched rocks at Wright for prohibiting teenagers in the hotel.

Inside, three girls -- Patti Bernler, Theresa Puzzo and Jeannie McCullough -- had an unsuccessful sit-in after their reservations were cancelled. The recent Holy Names Academy graduates had made reservations at all the major Seattle hotels and showed up that Thursday night at the Edgewater.

An office manager told them they could stay if a parent stayed with them. But after Puzzo's mother offered to stay, the deal was revoked.

About 300 teens waited for the Beatles to land at Sea-Tac International Airport and when they did shortly after 4 p.m., police struggled to keep them from the Beatles' limousine.

Neil Low, now a Seattle police captain, was 15 and visiting his dad at work. He remembers watching the limo drive down Wall Street to the Edgewater, where another group of roughly 300 girls were screaming.

"I could hear them from four blocks away," he said.

Inside Ann Wright's scrapbook is a photo of Paul McCartney escaping into the Edgewater's main entrance. At her Kent retirement home Thursday, she remembered the Seattle Police Harbor Patrol capturing girls who swam from West Seattle.

One teen paid a laundry man to try and sneak her inside. A hotel maid found two 16-year-old girls in a fourth-floor room, hiding under a bed. They were escorted out before getting close to the group, and begged a P-I reporter not to print their names.

"Our folks think we're staying with friends," one said.

The Wrights' two daughters and their babysitter were the only young girls allowed inside -- and even they had to hide. Their father worried the crowd would turn ugly if they were seen inside.

"But they never knocked the fence down," Ann Wright said. "And we were surprised."

First rock concert at current KeyArena site

Though accounts vary, more than 14,000 people packed into what was then the Seattle Center Coliseum.

At a press conference shortly before the 8:07 p.m. start, McCartney told about fishing from the window of their suite at the Edgewater. Drummer Ringo Starr said people kept yelling there were no fish. When the group said they didn't go up in the Space Needle, George Harrison said it looked better from the ground.

While the Beatles walked to their dressing room, a girl fell about 25 feet to the floor, sprawling next to Starr. She had crawled through an air vent, and when asked by the drummer if she was OK, silently got up and ran into the arena, according to a book about the tour.

Four opening acts filled nearly and hour and a half, and promoters kept the coliseum lights on in an attempt to subdue the crowd. It didn't work.

When KJR disc jockey Pat O'Day introduced the group at 9:25 p.m., the crowd erupted in screams.

"We sat behind the stage and I remember screaming 'George! George!" said Denise Lynch of Olympia, then 11. "My sister liked Ringo so she was screaming for him."

On a side of the stage, which was guarded by Navy sailors and dozens of Seattle police, O'Day caught a look from George Harrison.

"George looked at me and he reached down and pulled the electrical plug out of the bottom of his guitar for a minute," he recalled in 2003. "And then he put it back in and kept playing and he shrugged like 'What difference does it make? No one can hear us anyway.'

"But it was the phenomenon in that case of seeing the Beatles and being there and a release of all the excitement and the adoration for the group."

Fans hurled jelly beans at the group, and a radio reporter traveling with the band described it as like being in the middle of a ward for psychotics. Thirty-five people were treated by medics at the show, which O'Day said was the first rock show at that venue - now KeyArena. Two other teens were taken to a hospital with more serious injuries.

When the roughly 29-minute set finished, the group ran to an ambulance. The rest of their party traveled back to the Edgewater in Cadillacs.

Believing the Beatles were in one, crowds hurled themselves onto the roof.

"The driver got out just in time -- just before the roof caved in from the sheer weight," former radio reporter Larry Kane recalled in his book "Ticket To Ride." "Thankfully, there were no passengers in the car yet as it was completely destroyed under the weight of frenzied fanatics."

Lasting publicity

Kane, the only American journalist in the Beatles' official press group, was told by John Lennon that he thought some hoodlums would sell their sheets and towels and carpet.

"We've got some plans, too," Lennon said.

In his follow-up book, "Lennon Revealed," Kane claimed "(Lennon) and his Beatle buddies urinated on a carpet they were standing on to prevent people from seizing it and cutting it into pieces to sell as Beatles memorabilia."

Though that has been disputed locally, it appears Lennon may not have known the specifics of who planned to remove the carpet.

The orange-and-yellow shag carpet was pulled from room 272 and sold to MacDougall's, a now-defunct department store once on Second Avenue and Pike Street. The store president said that based on the success of the sale, a contribution would be made to what is now Children's Hospital Medical Center.

When the store had a special 9 a.m. opening, 60 teenagers were already in line.

Ann Wright, who recalled all the proceeds going to Children's, said her husband had the sheets changed and furniture taken to other, undisclosed rooms so they wouldn't turn up missing.

One girl from Eastern Washington wrote him a letter at home asking for the toilet seat. Because it was a unique request, Don Wright tried to get it for her. But another manager had already given it to another girl who'd asked for it.

One man who claimed to be a barber -- but only got inside to have a drink at the bar -- sold hair clippings he said were from the Beatles to the girls on the fence outside.

Ann Wright, who recalls the Beatles being part of a 40-person traveling crew, said the hotel had to devote an entire room for the baked goods, fan letters, combs and other items brought for the band. The Beatles took a few things, but most the stuff went to Children's or was tossed.

The attention continued for days, then weeks.

"That started the whole trend of bands staying there," Cathy Wright, the manager's youngest daughter recalled.

O'Day remembered the Beach Boys, Roy Orbison, Ray Charles, the Rolling Stones and several others all staying there -- many in suite 272. Led Zeppelin stayed at the hotel twice -- both infamous stays.

Room 272 is much different than it was 45 years ago. Now Beatles pictures are framed on the wall, a plaque marks the outside; and album covers are framed in the bookshelf.

The hotel is holding a contest through Aug. 31, asking for the best Beatles memory. The grand prize includes a night in the "Beatles Suite" and dinner at the Edgewater's restaurant.

A night in the suite went for $72 in 1964. It now goes for $1,050 a night.

And every week, someone asks about it.

"Don knew we would get great publicity from having them," Ann Wright recalled. "And he was right."