By far the most elaborately decorated nightclub in the district was the Club Royale, which boasted beautiful, stylized murals on either side of a stairwell visible through the window in the door where you are standing. The murals depict a racial mix of stylish men in tuxedos and women in furs, while art deco lettering above the stairs announces the name of the club. More murals graced the walls of the spacious club downstairs, many with an Asian garden and flamingo theme. Hidden for decades, the murals were discovered during a 2018 renovation by Tanya Woo, whose father bought the building in 1963 and opened the Mon Hei Bakery there 10 years later. No one knows who created the paintings, but it may have been a commercial artists related to one of the three Scandinavian businessmen responsible for putting up the Nelson Tagholm Jensen building, back in 1909. Known today as the Louisa Hotel, the building was operated for decades as a single resident occupancy hotel for Asian cannery workers.
In the summer of 1930, perhaps inspired by the success of Charlie Louie’s Chinese Garden across the street, a crew of gangsters opened a speakeasy downstairs that became colloquially known as the Bucket of Blood, though it was not particularly violent. The place was also known as the Hong Kong Chinese Society, even though the owners were white. Clarinetist Joe Darensbourg, who came to Seattle in 1928 from New Orleans, recalled playing here with Seattle saxophonist Gerald Wells and an unlucky gentleman pianist named Anson “Polly” Butler was arrested at the club in a 1931 raid.
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Detail from stairwell mural at the
Club Royale. (Paul de Barros)
Louisa Hotel, 1938, then known as the Hudson. Entrance to the Club
Royale was at the far left of the building.
(Washington State Archives)
According to newspaper descriptions of such police raids, the Club Royale was a posh place that served sumptuous meals with table service, a full bar and a guard by the door who tipped off the clientele when the cops showed up. Which they often did, forcing the club to close on the New Year’s Eve before 1933. However, a new place sprang up in to take its place, The Sky-High, which became a hot topic during a 1935 city council investigation of the crooked cops who took bribes to keep it open.
In 1938, another club called the Blue Heaven operated on the alley side of the basement. Sadly, a gambling den that later occupied that sister space wound up justifying the name Bucket of Blood. Called the Wah Mee, it was the site of a 1983 robbery/massacre that resulted in 13 deaths.
Shuttered forever, the Club Royale and the Wah Mee are now an underground parking lot for the residents of the happily restored Louisa Hotel, which offers much-needed low-income housing to the neighborhood.
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Louisa Hotel, 2024. The Club Royale – aka Bucket of Blood – was reached via the doorway to right of the red lantern. Sign for Louisa Hotel (with yellow gables) is just visible at the right corner of the hotel.
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