North Carolina's third house of government was the Sir Walter Hotel on Fayetteville Street. This is the oldest surviving hotel building in Raleigh, constructed between 1923 and 1924 and named for Sir Walter Raleigh. From the moment the Capital Construction Company opened the Hotel Sir Walter in January 1924, it set itself apart as the largest building in the southern portion of Raleigh's business district. Because of where it sits and the people who gathered here, the hotel earned the nickname North Carolina's "third house of government" and served as a focal point for state political activity until the 1960s.
It became the unofficial headquarters of the North Carolina Democratic Party, and by 1925 was home to over eighty percent of the state legislature. For the next three decades the hotel housed lobbyists, aides, jurors, newspapermen, businessmen and other influential individuals. A piece of that politics is almost a local legend: for years liquor lobbyists rented Room 215, delivering nine cases of bourbon there every week, then distributing bottles to legislators in brown paper bags.
Stand here and imagine the comings and goings of that time. Fayetteville Street and the southern business district stretch beyond you from here.