Ever Steal From a Hotel? Give it Back

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2008 — -- Keith McClinsey didn't bat an eyelash when he spotted a silver Champagne bucket for sale on eBay that had been filched by the seller's father during a long-ago party at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel.

He was a tad perplexed, however, to learn of a 5-gallon punchbowl that vanished after a holiday fete in the 1950s.

"How does someone carry a 5-gallon punchbowl out of a Christmas party?" muses the hotel's senior sales manager.

And last month, after picking up two 1920s banquet chairs in suburban Virginia for repatriation to the historic hotel, McClinsey still had no idea how they got away.

The Mayflower recently put out word it was launching a no-questions-asked amnesty program for return of items pilfered throughout its eight-decade existence.

The effort coincides with the publication of "McClinsey's Images of America: Washington, D.C.'s Mayflower Hotel" (Arcadia Publishing, $19.95), which highlights the hotel's colorful history. But the program is as much about gathering stories as it is about reclaiming stuff, both of which eventually will be on exhibit together.

"We get a lot of random calls from (adult) children cleaning out closets," McClinsey says. "They'll say, 'I found this, and it had your name on it. Do you want it back?' As these folks are passing on, the stories are passing with them. We're interested in the stories as much as the items."

Other historic hotels have made similar attempts. The Peabody Memphis is seeking artifacts for its memorabilia room. The Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, where a director of heritage programs receives returned artifacts, is on the lookout for historic photographs to display this year when the hotel celebrates its 120th anniversary.

The Mission Inn in Riverside, Calif., operates a foundation and museum to preserve artifacts, some of which have been donated by former guests or sold back by collectors.

In 2006 alone, 400 items came back. In 2007, the management created the Bringing It Home program to mark the hotel's 30th anniversary as a National Historic Landmark. Among the give-backs: seven intricate brass bells with a confessional note saying they were taken from the hotel's underground tunnels in a "not very funny" teenage prank in the 1960s.