It’s not every day that you have a hotel room named after you — and it’s even more unusual to be around to experience it. Most hotel rooms are named after dead people.

Hotel Brouwer in Amsterdam has rooms named after such revered Dutch painters as Vermeer, Rembrandt and Van Gogh. The Historic Franklin Hotel in Deadwood, S.D., named a number of its suites after colorful characters who have stayed there since 1903. And the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, Ore., pays homage to books and literature with 20 rooms named after such highly read authors as Jane Austen, Mark Twain and Colette.

Now there’s the Tom Churchill room in the newly renovated McMenamins Olympic Club Hotel and Theater in downtown Centralia.

Tom Churchill? If the name doesn’t ring a bell, he’s a South Whidbey fellow who is also a well-respected author and playwright. And when I checked in with him at The Smilin’ Dog several weeks ago, he was alive and well, thank you!

So how did this former University of Green Bay writing professor end up with his name on a hotel room door? Tim Hills, project historian for McMenamins, based out of Portland, said the idea for naming the 27 rooms after people from the Olympic Club’s past came easy.

“It was a natural, to bring out who these people were,” said Hills. “The characters are the history and the magic of the Olympic Club.”

Walking through the hotel hallway, Churchill is in good company. There’s the Roy Gardner room, named after a notorious train robber who was captured at the hotel in 1921; the George Washington room, honoring the African-American who came west and settled on land that he established as the city of Centralia in 1883; and the F.B. Hubbard room, named for a Centralia mill owner and the city’s most influential citizen during the early 1900s.

The Olympic Club’s past is colorful, indeed. It opened its doors in 1908 and was ornately remodeled five years later. Upstairs was the Olympic Club Hotel (originally the Oxford Hotel), and its proximity to Centralia’s train station attracted loggers, miners and railroad workers. It also became a watering hole and gathering place for members of the Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World), who formed their union to establish better working conditions and solidarity among the members.

In 1980, Tom Churchill’s “Centralia Dead March” was published by Curbstone Press, the first book in 50 years to examine the violent labor clash that occurred in Centralia on Armistice Day 1919. In November 2002, Churchill was invited to read and discuss his book at the Olympic Club Hotel & Theater, which was used as a setting in his novel:

“About a block from the train station he found a bar and restaurant called the Olympic Club, with an open air glass counter that came right out of the place and greeted you on the sidewalk. He went in and ordered a beer, which the bartender bought because he was in uniform. It was a fancy place with big plate mirrors behind the bar. The bar was a reddish wood with brass taps and fittings, and two red and green glass chandeliers hung down from a ceiling that was 20 feet high.”

Although Tom and his wife, Sophie, didn’t stay at the hotel the weekend of his reading, they returned a month later and spent the night in the Tom Churchill room. Tom smiled and laughed when I asked him what it was like to sleep in a room named after him. (Yes, he had a photo taken of himself in bed.)

Last month, I took Amtrak Cascades (www.amtrakcascades.com) to Centralia from Seattle, and requested Room 11 — the Tom Churchill Room. Like the other rooms in the hotel, there is a portrait of its namesake on the wall (“Goodnight, Tom!”) with a short biography of Churchill and a quote from his book (“It was as if the old men of the town were all in their cupboards, waiting for us to find them.”). The room is simply decorated with green velvet drapes, a queen bed, a table, two chairs and a sink. Private bathrooms are down the hall (bathrobes provided). There are also earplugs in the nightstand, due to the proximity of the train station.

McMenamins (www.mcmenamins.com), which owns 52 establishments in Oregon and Washington, has done its usual classy job in renovating this historic club and hotel. They have the knack of preserving and enhancing the past without exploiting it into a Disney theme. McMenamins Olympic Club Hotel and Theater includes a pub and bar, cafe and restaurant, on-site brewery and a classic styled billiard parlor.

Best of all, there’s a unique movie theater that’s more like a cozy living room filled with comfy chairs and sofas and original murals on the walls. Here you can sit back, relax and enjoy one of MeMenamins’ ales on tap or other spirits of choice along with your M&M’s and popcorn.

Room rates are $55-$65 ($40 for the bunk room) and include breakfast and admission to the movie theater.

Plus all the history you can soak up.

Sue Frause can be reached by e-mail at skfrause@whidbey.com.