Seattle's Arctic Club, a fraternal order for men with business ties to Alaska and the Yukon was dissolved in the 1970s, but members are still invoked throughout the entrance spaces of what is now The Arctic Club Seattle, a Doubletree by Hilton Hotel.

Stoic explorers gaze down upon guests doing business at the front desk, while collars and top hats under glass as decorative items harken back to the days when much of the building was an exclusively male preserve designed for enjoying cocktails and trading stories of adventures in the north.

Seattle, today a tech hub that's also growing in prominence as a North American portal to Asia, has long served the role of gateway city. At the turn of the 20th Century, it had served as the provisioning point for U.S. journeys to the new territory of Alaska, most especially during the 1898 gold rush that drove nearly 100,000 prospectors north to Canada and Alaska.

While most returned empty-handed, there was money to be made, primarily in the buying and selling of land claims, and the Arctic Club was formed in 1908 for those returned from the region.

The building was completed in 1916, and the architectural flourishes commissioned by the original members such as the terracotta walrus heads that still adorn the exterior of the building have stood sentry over successive boom-and-bust periods for the city. The hotel has occupied the century-old building for the last decade.

It's an interesting anomaly in the Doubletree network. Like the theatrical equivalent of being billed above the name of the film, the Arctic Club Hotel's personality blares loudly ahead of the Doubletree branding (although the brand certainly lends familiarity and draws broader interest—you're getting a cookie at check-in, for sure.)

For those who like to engage in a good bit of escapist make-believe when visiting historic hotels, it doesn't require much squinting to feel as though you've been transported. Guest rooms are decorated in clubby, masculine tones that evoke the era of the club's founding, with design touches such as maps and portraits of indigenous peoples that could easily have been in place on opening day.

Branding is strong in guest rooms, with custom monogrammed bedspreads and comfortably diner-thick branded coffee mugs. In this caffeine-obsessed city, a Starbucks dark roast blend is offered alongside a tiny french press—easily some of the best in-room coffee to be found in this hotel category. Guest baths, identified by the frosted glass antique office doors stenciled with "Bath" are splashed with subway tile and period fittings. Coffee mugs and the cute walrus mascot that guards the snack tray are available for purchase in the lobby as mementos.

The neighborhood was certainly a hot one when the hotel was built, and is making its way back after some decades of blight. The imposing Smith Tower, the imposing Beaux Arts structure that was a construction contemporary of the Arctic Club is well-viewed from many of the hotel's guest rooms, and on a clear day many rooms can even see Mount Rainier, almost some 100 miles distant to the south.

Fans of haunted hotels will also find their due. A sitting United States congressman, Marion Zioncheck, fell to his death from a fifth story window in 1936, coming to rest on the pavement directly in front of a waiting car occupied by his wife. At the time ruled a suicide, theories to the contrary have persisted throughout the decades, and there have been reports of the hotel's elevator going to the building's fifth floor and doors opening without a call.

Guests can trade ghost stories or tales of their own adventures in the north or around Seattle at the hotel's Polar Bar, which occupies the same space as the bar of the original Arctic Club and shares the clubby style present in guest rooms, accented with bits of polar kitsch.

Guests lucky enough to be attending a function will find the sumptuous dome-topped ballroom, another building original, yet another reminder of those halcyon days when adventurers loomed large on the landscape of this growing frontier metropolis.

The Takeaway

The Arctic Club Seattle isn't your run-of-the-mill DoubleTree. It's a portal to the past for those seeking an escapist getaway to the earlier days of one of the country's most fascinating cities.

The Math

I've seen rates from around $170 during low season.

Instagrammable Moment

Shots of Smith Tower, the Space Needle, sumptuous furnishings or the cute walrus mascot tend to get attention.

Loyalty

Hilton Honors members can earn and redeem at The Arctic Club.

Good To Know

As in most DoubleTree hotels, I also ask for a cookie at check-out.

Guest rooms situated on the southwest corner (where the hallway turns) have a good view of Smith Tower. The Hilton app allows Hilton Honors members to check-in online and select their guest room from a floor plan.

They're few in number, but rooms on the 8th floor have terraces, which are perfect for sipping coffee and enjoying the views in the morning.