Room 408 at the Hotel Sorrento, Seattle’s First Hill Landmark

Reviewed by Josh N · Updated September 9, 2026 · How we verify

The Hotel Sorrento sits on the crest of First Hill in Seattle, Washington, a seven-story Italian-styled block that has been taking in travelers since 1909 and collecting ghost stories for almost as long. Most of those stories circle a single room on the fourth floor, and a writer who, on paper, has no clear reason to be there at all.

Quick Orientation

• Opened: 1909, just ahead of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition
• Neighborhood: First Hill, Seattle
• Status: operating boutique hotel, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021
• Focus of the legend: Room 408 and the fourth-floor corridor

The Hotel That Was Traded for a Pear Orchard

The Sorrento opened in 1909, timed to catch the crowds arriving for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. It was developed by a Seattle clothier named Samuel Rosenberg, and despite the timing it did not prosper. The hotel was under financial distress almost from the start.

Rosenberg cut his losses in an unusual way. In 1910 he traded the hotel outright for a 240-acre orchard in Oregon’s Rogue River Valley. His sons, Harry and David, took over the running of that orchard, and the prized pears they shipped in gift baskets went out under a nameplate that outlived the whole affair: Harry & David. It is one of the odder footnotes in Seattle hotel history, and it is a matter of record rather than legend.

The building itself is credited to architect Harlan Thomas, whose Italian-inspired exterior and warm interiors made the Sorrento a marker of sophistication in a young city. It has been described as an Italian oasis style hotel, and the description still fits the mood inside better than any technical label.

Rookwood Tiles in the Fireside Room

The single most admired architectural feature at the Sorrento is not the facade but a fireplace. The Rookwood tiles composing the fireplace surround in the Fireside Room are the detail that preservationists single out, and the room around them remains the hotel’s social center, praised by guests for an atmosphere that has changed very little in tone across a century.

The Malone family bought the hotel in the 1980s and fully renovated the building, which is a large part of why so much survived. In 2021 the Sorrento was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The building also has a second life on screen: a fictional version of it, renamed the Serevena Hotel, appears in the 2020 video game The Last of Us Part II.

Room 408 and the Alice B. Toklas Story

Ask about the Sorrento’s ghost and you will be told about Alice B. Toklas, the writer and partner of Gertrude Stein, whose name has been attached to Room 408 for decades. Guests and staff describe a woman in 1920s-style clothing appearing in the fourth-floor hallways, and the room itself has become the hotel’s requested address for anyone hoping for a story to take home.

It is worth separating what is claimed from what is established. Toklas was born in San Francisco, and the specific link between her and this hotel is carried by ghost lore rather than by anything in the Sorrento’s documented history. The identification appears to have grown up around the sightings rather than the other way around. That does not make the reported experiences less real to the people having them, but the name on the ghost should be treated as folklore.

What People Report on the Fourth Floor

The accounts gathered around the Sorrento are consistent in kind if not in detail, and none of them have been verified:

• A woman in period dress seen briefly in fourth-floor corridors
• Lights flickering or switching on and off with no explanation
• A sense of being watched near Room 408
• Phantom footsteps and disembodied voices in rooms and hallways
• Cold spots that guests notice without prompting
• Elevators that appear to move on their own
• Faint piano music with no one at the keys

Paranormal investigators book stays specifically to test these claims. The hotel has not made extraordinary counterclaims of its own, and much of what circulates comes from guest anecdote and staff retelling, which is worth remembering before treating any of it as evidence.

Staying at the Hotel Sorrento

This is a working boutique hotel, not an attraction, so the only real way to investigate it is to book a night. Room 408 is frequently requested and is not guaranteed to be available. The Fireside Room is open to guests and visitors and is the easiest way to see the Rookwood tilework without a reservation, and it is the part of the hotel most people remember regardless of whether anything unusual happens.

Guests are asked to behave like guests. Other people are paying to sleep on the fourth floor, and wandering the corridors with recording equipment at two in the morning is a good way to end a stay early.

Sources

• Weekly List (National Park Service)
• CitySearch – Your local city guide
• Hotel Sorrento | Official Website
• GeoHack – Sorrento Hotel
• Wikipedia: Sorrento Hotel

Address: 900 Madison Street

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