Butterworth Building – Kells Irish Restaurant

The Butterworth Building in Seattle, Washington stands as a significant example of early twentieth-century commercial architecture, its facade overlooking the bustling streets of the Pike Place Market neighborhood. Constructed during the opening decades of the twentieth century, the building emerged as part of Seattle's rapid development from a small territorial settlement into a major Pacific Northwest metropolitan center of commerce and culture. The structure was designed with classical detailing and substantial masonry construction typical of the era, representing an investment in permanence by its original developers who envisioned it as a cornerstone of the Pike Place neighborhood. In its earliest years, the building served various commercial purposes, housing retail establishments and office spaces that reflected Seattle's economic growth and the aspirations of the business class that built the city during this transformative period.

The building's most significant and tragic purpose came during the second decade of the twentieth century when the devastating influenza pandemic of 1918 swept across the Pacific Northwest, claiming unprecedented numbers of lives. During this catastrophic period, the Butterworth Building was converted into a makeshift mortuary facility to handle the overwhelming number of deaths that the city's existing infrastructure could not accommodate. Hundreds of bodies flowed through the facility over weeks and months, each representing complete individual human tragedies—families separated by sudden death, children orphaned in a matter of days, and entire households decimated by the invisible pathogen. Families arrived to identify their loved ones in austere corridors and examination rooms, experiencing grief that appeared to seep into the very walls. The Butterworth facility processed an estimated 300 to 400 corpses during the peak of the epidemic, creating an environment saturated with profound emotional trauma that appeared to permanently alter the spiritual fabric of the building itself.

Following its use as a mortuary, the building underwent transformation into commercial restaurant and entertainment spaces suitable for post-war Seattle's developing food and hospitality culture. In the late twentieth century, it was renovated into the Kells Irish Restaurant and Pub, establishing itself as a premier dining establishment in the Pike Place Market area. Yet the building's dark history did not remain dormant. Numerous witnesses have reported consistent encounters with "the Lady in Waiting," a ghostly female figure dressed in clothing consistent with the early twentieth-century period, who manifests primarily in the basement areas and occasionally near tables in the main dining room. This specter has been photographed multiple times and witnessed by countless patrons and staff members, described as a melancholic presence seemingly trapped in an earlier era, unable to move beyond the location of her death.

Additional paranormal activity has been attributed to a mischievous child spirit—a little girl with distinctive red hair—who appears to delight in creating spontaneous disturbances throughout the structure. Witnesses consistently report glasses sliding inexplicably off tables with no apparent cause, mirrors spontaneously shattering without impact, plaster mysteriously falling from ceilings in intact areas, and meals being mysteriously rearranged or disturbed. Temperature drops have been experienced throughout various sections of the building, and disembodied whispers have been recorded by multiple independent paranormal investigation sources. The Butterworth Building has gained substantial recognition as one of the most actively haunted establishments in the United States, having been featured on local Seattle media outlets and designated as possibly the most haunted Irish pub in America. The convergence of architectural significance, tragic historical events, and sustained paranormal activity documented across decades makes Kells Irish Restaurant a uniquely compelling location for both paranormal researchers and casual observers of supernatural phenomena.