In hotels, as with real estate, nothing is more fundamental than location, location, location. And as I take in the view at Silver Cloud Point Ruston's dramatic first-floor window, showing off a large expanse of Puget Sound and Commencement Bay, I notice that this under-the-radar local chain took that rule to heart—but in two very different ways.

Silver Cloud, founded in 1980, operates eight hotels throughout the Pacific Northwest, all but one around Puget Sound (the other is in Portland). The aesthetic, at least in most of them, is one of efficiency and practicality. Even at some of the newer properties, these are hotels as we pictured them in the 1980s (not a diss, as I am also from the 1980s).

At least until 2021, when this Point Ruston property launched and threw a different kind of Silver Cloud into the mix—but more on that later.

Most of us know Silver Cloud is the convenient choice. Its Broadway location, the only proper hotel in Capitol Hill, is also a few steps from Swedish First Hill hospital—the kind of place you'd stay when your grandchild is being born or your husband is having knee surgery. A U-District outpost sits near the University of Washington campus, the stadium, the Burke-Gilman, and the shopping hub of University Village; exactly where your parents would stay during dorm move-in. And in SoDo, a Silver Cloud makes up the northeast corner of First Avenue South and Royal Brougham Way, closer to the Lumen Field and T-Mobile Park entrances than any $40 parking spot.

And then there are the waterfront outposts, ones that snagged an obvious but underused type of Northwest real estate. The Mukilteo Silver Cloud is propped up on concrete pillars like a dock, Puget Sound lapping the shore underneath its rooms and the Whidbey Island ferry landing next door. The chain's first Tacoma location similarly juts out over the water about halfway between downtown and Point Defiance.

Few local views can rival one of Puget Sound, but not many hotels face the water up close; in downtown Seattle there's the Beatles-famous Edgewater Hotel...and that’s about it. Why not? A lot of red tape, says Brian Zuber, Silver Cloud chief operating officer. “It’s arduous, it’s expensive and very time consuming,” he says of the entitlement process that allowed them to nose hotel rooms out over the waves in 2000 (Mukilteo) and 2003 (Tacoma). “Sometimes upwards of eight to 10 years to get fully entitled for a waterfront build, if it happens at all.”

So for years, Silver Cloud boasted a few super convenient locations and a few lovely but modest waterfront getaways. The portfolio extended into Bellevue and Redmond, though both properties were sold in the last few years. But in 2021 a new Silver Cloud opened, one not quite like the others.

The project began back in 2009, when Tacoma’s Point Ruston was finally undergoing the development that had been imagined for decades: a walkable, shoppable, livable area built on a stretch of waterfront near Point Defiance that had long been home to a copper smelter. A 2008 Master Development Plan describes the proposed hotel as an “anchor” for the promenade that would also include condominiums, assisted living, shops, restaurants, and parks. Construction began in 2017, but a planned early 2020 opening was delayed by the pandemic.

Finally, in summer 2021, Silver Cloud Point Ruston debuted. Unlike its humbler siblings, it was an expansive, shiny property, with nearly 200 rooms. The workout room alone is bigger than some standalone gyms, and a year-round rooftop pool and hot tub looks out over the still-growing development. Many rooms, plus the entirety of the ground-level Copper and Salt restaurant, take in the waterfront and shores of Vashon in the distance.

An in-house spa does massages, facials, the works—you can picture the nail salon section filling with an entire bridal party during wedding weekends, of which there are plenty. But the spa beds are nicer than anything I’ve encountered in Seattle (not just heated, but adjustable to body shapes in a manner I have never seen before). The light fixtures in the hallways are twisty and cool enough to catch attention but functional enough to make the whole space feel notably bright.

Brunch included pastries so fresh I had to wait a few moments lest I burn my tongue on a chocolate croissant. Thanks to the angle of the restaurant (and many of the rooms above it), the hotel captures both sunrise and sunset, and I could peer down to the industrial slag pile turned park, Dune Peninsula. It was, I had to admit, far nicer than I’d given Silver Cloud credit for.

But for all the extra elbow room and fancy spa treatments, Point Ruston isn’t completely divorced from the rest of the chain—including the still humming along Tacoma Waterfront property, just down the road. The rooms don’t have eye-catching splashes of color or the Pendleton blanket aesthetic or, like I once saw in a downtown Seattle hotel, pillows with David Bowie’s face on them. The bathrooms are standard but don't have rain shower heads or showers facing the rest of the room (looking at you, W Bellevue).

So the Silver Cloud continues to walk the line between corporate predictability and its local roots. “I don't see us going, you know, national anytime soon,” Zuber says. But the company submitted design plans for a 10-story property in downtown Bellevue in 2023, with the kind of conference and event space that echoes the Point Ruston location—in other words, a different feel from the older ones. That project, however, is now on hold.

But for locals, Silver Cloud remains a kind of local almost-secret. It’s the hotel that’s right where you need a hotel, or a waterfront escape that’s only a 45-minute drive away. And now it’s the place I’ll keep in my pocket for a scenic Tacoma brunch, extra croissants.