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About The Lodges
El Tovar
El Tovar was designed by Illinois architect Charles Whittlesey. Using Northwestern firs and local limestone, Whittlesey combined the styles of a European villa and a log cabin. The lobby’s rustic elements and natural use of logs — dark-stained paneling, heavy beams and rafters, stone fireplace ? extend the Americanized Euro-chateau feeling. Several animal heads decorate the walls.
Today the lodge offers 78 guest rooms and two dining areas. When the lodge first opened, the dining room was managed by the Fred Harvey Company — the company handled all food service for the Santa Fe Railway. Fred Harvey pioneered the concept of serving quality food quickly to travelers. His system allowed people to eat a four or five course meal in about 25 minutes at a train stop.
Harvey’s other major contribution to Arizona was hiring Mary Jane Colter. She was originally signed on as a decorator, but quickly proved to be an innovative and progressive architect. Colter designed the Hopi House, directly across from El Tovar, as well as Hermit’s Rest and Lookout Point.
In January 2005, El Tovar turned 100 years old, and closed for three months to complete a $4.5 million renovation. Arizona Lodges features the 100th anniversary celebration in April 2005, and the grand re-opening.
Grand Canyon Lodge
The Grand Canyon Lodge was originally designed as part of the Union Pacific Railroad’s Loop Tour. The railroad was eager to compete with the Santa Fe, and came up with the idea of building lodges at Bryce, Zion and Grand Canyon and connecting all three with motor coaches. The lodges became known as the Loop Tour lodges. Stephen Mather, director of the newly formed National Park Service, insisted the Loop Tour
Lodges be a community of rustic overnight log cabins. Mather hired Gilbert Stanley Underwood, a man whose name would later become synonymous with rustic park architecture. Underwood’s concept was to not “unveil” the view of the Grand Canyon until the visitor was inside the lodge. Travelers would drive up to the entrance and walk into the lobby without seeing the canyon. Not until visitors entered the Sun Room would they finally see the canyon.
The lodge’s original design was similar to a Spanish fort, with a very high tower. Underwood relied heavily on local materials blending the lodge into the rock of the canyon. The limestone cliffs the lodge was built on were integrated into the building itself.
Completed in 1928, the Grand Canyon Lodge was a triumph of rustic architecture. But it would be short-lived. In the fall of 1932, the structure was lost in a fire. Rebuilding began two years later, and the lodge reopened in 1936. Although the new design shared some of the original’s vision, there were significant changes. The exterior was altered the most. The watchtower was removed and a traditional pitched roof replaced the original jagged rooflines. Fortunately, the interior of the lodge was recreated in the way Underwood had envisioned. Still true to the Loop Tour lodges, the Grand Canyon Lodge is a central day lodge surrounded by cabins. Today there is a total of 80.
And in the Sun Room, large picture windows still frame the canyon.
La Posada
Twenty-five years after the opening of El Tovar, and just two years after rival Union Pacific completed Grand Canyon Lodge, the Santa Fe Railway opened one of the finest railroad lodges ever built, La Posada. In January 1929, Santa Fe announced that Mary Jane Colter would design and build the newest Fred Harvey House. La Posada is located 200 miles southwest of the Grand Canyon in the town of Winslow.
As with earlier designs, Colter conjured up a story to help her imagine the structure. Her tale was that of a Spanish Don who builds a cattle ranch and home. As the home is passed through the generations, new wings are added to finally create a grand hacienda. The family fortune is eventually lost and they relinquish the ranch to the Harvey Company who promise to maintain the proud estate.
For its time, the building is very modern. Cast in concrete, La Posada’s walls are approximately 20 inches thick to minimize the sounds of the trains. The layout of the space is open, with broad arches from the ballroom to the library to the lobby to the foyer. Colter also was responsible for all the interiors, designed or hand-selected all the furniture, the china and the maid’s costumes. The only landscape plan she ever made was for La Posada When it opened in May 1930, it was hailed as an artistic achievement, and also chided for going $1.5 million over budget.
La Posada guests would soon include the rich and famous. Over the years Albert Einstein, John Wayne, Clark Gable, Bob Hope, Jane Russell, and Shirley Temple stayed at the lodge. It became a favorite hideaway for Charles Lindberg, who designed the Winslow airport, and Howard Hughes.
In addition to providing meals for La Posada guests, Fred Harvey also ran “Indian Detours.” Tourists (or “dudes”) were invited to climb aboard a “Harvey Car’ and head out to explore the wild west. The tours traveled south to the Mogollon Rim, north to the Grand Canyon, to Monument Valley and Canyon de Chelly, to the Hopi reservation and Navajo reservations. One detour destination took guests to the edge of Meteor Crater.
As the country slipped in the Great Depression in the 1930s, fewer travelers were on Northern Arizona roads. Those who did make the journey traveled more by car.
The days of rail passengers coming to La Posada were gone. Finally by 1957, the building was closed. Santa Fe Rail tried to sell it but no one was interested. Since they couldn’t sell it, they converted it to their Arizona headquarters. The once heralded artistic achievement was relegated to dropped ceilings, fluorescent lighting and linoleum tile. But La Posada still had its admirers. Two Winslow residents, Marie LaMar and Janice Griffith, joined forces to prevent the building from facing the fate of other railroad buildings — demolition. Their efforts eventually led to the city being awarded federal funds to purchase and begin restoring the building. Now, the group only needed to raise the matching funds, an estimated $11.5 million, to complete the restoration. That would soon become a reality with the help of Allan Affeldt, a graduate student from California, who noticed La Posada on a National Trust for Historic Preservation list of endangered buildings.
Over the next several years, Affeldt advised the Winslow group, then eventually took on the task himself. In 1997, Affeldt and his wife, artist Tina Mion, became owners of La Posada.
After years of renovation, La Posada is again a very well known and beloved building.
Arizona Lodges: The High Country was made possible by the KAET Program Partners, Friends of Channel 8 who provide additional gifts for programs about the Arizona experience.
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