BOTHELL, Wash.
McMenamins, a family-owned company known for restoring historic buildings and creating neighborhood gathering spots, opened the revitalized Anderson School last week in Bothell, Wash.—covering five acres and offering three restaurants, two small bars and an art-deco style boutique hotel.
Located in downtown Bothell, Anderson School is McMenamins’ first Seattle-area hotel and its largest Washington property.
Additional on-site attractions include a brewery, a movie theater, gardens and an indoor swimming pool filled with saltwater and surrounded by botanicals and natural light. The property also offers 72 hotel rooms that previously served as school classrooms, and almost 7,000 square feet of event space.
The 72 hotel rooms boast colorfully painted panels and headboards as well as private bathrooms, WiFi and TVs. Each room is unique, featuring stories and original art painted by McMenamins’ resident artists that commemorate the history of the Bothell community and people.
The Principal’s Office is now a cozy hotel bar where coffee, breakfast cocktails and pastries are available in the morning while beer, wine and spirits are served in the evening.
Hotel reception, the primary restaurant, gift shop and a meeting room are located in the school’s original cafeteria building. Tavern on the Square, an upscale café offers marketfresh fare including seafood, local produce and house-made desserts and ice cream.
Adjacent to the café is the Erma Olin Room, a private event space. The Anderson School Market, the property’s gift shop, features locally-made products and wines as well as McMenamins bottled beer, spirits, wine, glassware, growlers and apparel. The Market also sells pints of house-made ice cream and breakfast pastries.
The school’s former swimming pool has been refurbished into a South Seas-inspired, tropical saltwater pool surrounded by bamboo paneling. The three-to-five-feet deep pool is open to the public for a fee and available to overnight hotel guests and Bothellresidents at no charge.
The North Shore Lagoon Bar (pictured) overlooking the saltwater pool features tropical drinks from around the globe and a collection of more than 80 rum varieties. Island-inspired dishes include coconut prawns, Thai pizza, noodle salads and house-made sorbet.
Next to the North Shore Lagoon is Wegner’s Garden, an outdoor private event space.
Other highlights are three multi-purpose event spaces, which can accommodate groups of 10 to 700 guests, and an intimate 134-seat “brew ‘n’ view” movie theater; both are now housed in the former gymnasium.
McMenamins operates 54 distinctive pubs, restaurants and historic hotels in the Pacific Northwest.
