It was a chaotic scene at DC’s Shoreham Hotel when the Beatles stayed there in February 1964. The band was in town for its first public American concert, and thousands of fans flocked to the hotel, clogging Calvert Street. The Beatles had rented an entire floor, with guards stationed at the stairwells to prevent anyone from sneaking in. They stayed in a presidential suite, as general manager Phil Hollywood later recalled in an interview with the Washington Post. “They were very polite, down-to-earth boys,” he said, “but I think they were overwhelmed by what was happening.” Hollywood had to think fast to get the band out of the hotel: He ordered up some diversionary limos to distract fans while the musicians snuck through the kitchen and onto a bus.
Today, the presidential suite is still there, and you can stay in it just like the Beatles did. The hotel—now the Omni Shoreham—also offers a “signature experience” built around its association with the Fab Four, which comes with a private two-hour tour of historic music sites around town and an elaborate afternoon tea for two in the Beatles’ suite. The price, which doesn’t include an overnight stay in the room, is $1,964.
Recently, the hotel invited me to check out this “Legends of Music experience,” which is how I found myself cruising around town in the back of a Lincoln Navigator one afternoon, getting a rudimentary overview of DC music history as we went by various cultural locations: the Howard Theatre, the 9:30 Club, a house where Duke Ellington once lived. The tour guide ran through some basics (“Chuck Brown was the father of a musical style unique to the District called go-go music”) and pointed out landmarks, including the old Washington Coliseum, where the Beatles performed in 1964 (it’s currently an REI). The guide was engaging; the Lincoln’s leather seats were luxurious. But it was hard to grasp who exactly this was for. Anyone who’d shell out almost $2,000 for a music experience would surely expect something more elaborate and revealing than this cursory drive-around. There wasn’t even an accompanying soundtrack.
When we arrived back at the Shoreham, I got a short tour of the hotel itself, including the former site of the Blue Room nightclub, a long-defunct hot spot that once offered performances by the likes of Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, and Edith Piaf. Then we headed up for tea in the Beatles’ suite, which is decorated with a few nods to its mop-top past: framed albums, black-and-white photos of the band, a copy of a set list that John Lennon handwrote on Shoreham stationery (the real one is on display in the lobby). The tea setup was impressively vertical: two towering displays of pastries and sandwiches. There was a fantastic view of Rock Creek Park.
But ultimately, it was hard to get too excited about a hotel suite. Back in 1964, the real action that night wasn’t in this room, it was down at the Coliseum, where the band—thrillingly raw, impossibly young—ripped through a 35-minute performance in front of 8,000 or so lucky attendees. Amazingly, that piece of history was preserved: You can now watch the whole thing on YouTube for free.
This article appears in the November 2025 issue of Washingtonian.
Rob Brunner grew up in DC and moved back in 2017 to join Washingtonian. Previously, he was an editor and writer at Fast Company and other publications. He lives with his family in Chevy Chase DC.
