HISTORY

ARIZONA'S Historic Hotels

Neither on the economic horizon, nor in the azure blue skies hanging over Prescott, Arizona, was there a cloud to be seen. It was 1927 and the automobile and an improving intrastate highway system had made Prescott, hovering at 6,000 in population, a practical day's drive from sweltering Phoenix. More and more it was the summer retreat to which businessmen, trapped in the desert heat of the Salt River Valley, sent their families, joining them only for the weekends.

Hospitable by nature, but increasingly restive in their role - in the eyes of Phoenicians - as rustics, the civic-conscious residents of Prescott made the bold decision in 1927 to erect a magnificent hotel as a magnet for their increasingly popular summer tourist business. Through public subscription, money was raised for the Hassayampa Inn, a four-story, 76-room hotel that Prescott's finest predicted would soon be the talk of the state.

Aiming for the best, Prescott's planners plucked the Southwest's most distinguished architect at the time for the job. He was Henry Trost of El Paso, whose Franciscan Hotel in Albuquerque had won renown for that city in New Mexico, and whose Gadsden Hotel in Douglas had given the Arizona border town its own flavor.

"But Trost's original design," says Prescott architect Bill Otwell, "borrowed heavily from Albuquerque's Franciscan in the Pueblo revival mode. The foundation was poured, but the Prescott people were uneasy with the Southwestern design. Being almost entirely Midwestern in origin, they were more comfortable with brick."

Brick they got, and with the Hassayampa's spacious lobby, cupolaed bell tower, and porte cochere, the hotel quickly became Prescott's social center as well as the tourist magnet that had been its raison d'être.

The hotel moved through a series of owners as its fortunes declined beginning in the '50s. However, a full-scale refurbishing of the Hassayampa under then-owner George Lee was completed in 1986 a Herculean job in many respects because it entailed installation of a completely new heating and air-conditioning plant and ductwork for the hotel as well as new plumbing fixtures.

The ornate ceiling artwork in the lobby was redone by Phoenix artist Rich Smith, Otwell said. The result is a Hassayampa that, in some respects, makes the Grand Dame of downtown Prescott even more glamorous than she was at her unveiling.

FLAGSTAFF'S HOTEL MONTE VISTA

Just as Prescott sensed the need in 1927 to cater to the tourist traffic with an impressive downtown hotel, so did the citizens of Flagstaff a key jump-off place,

HOTELS

(LEFT) Back in the '20s, Flagstaff's swank new Hotel Monte Vista, with its running water, flush toilets, telephones, and food service, advertised itself as the first full-service hotel in Arizona.

(ABOVE) The restored San Carlos Hotel once was the only major hotel in downtown Phoenix to have air cooling.

Then and now, for the Grand Canyon. When, as in Prescott, promoters in Flagstaff also turned to public subscription to raise $200,000 to build the Hotel Monte Vista they had an "angel" waiting in the wings - a single contributor who put up half the money. The contributor was novelist Zane Grey, a longtime fan of northern Arizona and Flagstaff. The Monte Vista - originally named the Flagstaff Community Hotel - was to turn up in several of Grey's novels simply as "the Community Hotel."

Restored to its 1927 splendor in 1985 and '86, today's Monte Vista has its original front desk, antique reproductions, ceiling fans, brass, and plush carpeting in all rooms and hallways.

It has 41 rooms, including 11 suites and two "petite" suites. A walk down the hallways is a nostalgic trip past rooms that bear the names of notables who have trod those same passages. While the largest suite, rightly enough, is the "Zane Grey," the "Humphrey Bogart" suite is almost as spacious. Other Hollywood stars who have signed in at the Monte Vista include Clark Gable, John Wayne, Walter Brennan, and Alan Ladd.

PHOENIX'S SAN CARLOS HOTEL Like both the Hassayampa and the Monte Vista, the San Carlos in Phoenix also dates from 1927. Due to the vagaries of the city's downtown economy, it has seen good times and bad as a hub of the community. Built on the site of Phoenix's first adobe elementary school, the seven-story San Carlos was floundering between absentee owners when the locally based Gregory Melikian family acquired it in 1973 and began a renovation program. In 1979 it was purchased by out-of-state owners. Original bathtubs, basins, and period furniture were retained in the rooms. And in the lobby, manager Owen Khatoonian says, "Everything is very much as it was 63 years ago with the addition of a lateracquisition, the beautiful crystal chandeliers that were imported from Austria in 1957." Last year, the Melikian family's Great Western Realty Corp., re-acquired the hotel and, in the words of longtime restoration expert Gregory Melikian, "picked up the goal, once again, of bringing back a bit of the charm and character of the heart of downtown Phoenix as it was in the 1930s to '50s." To complement the hotel's 113 sleeping rooms and three suites, the Melikians have brought back the once-popular bistro in the lobby of the San Carlos, the Palm Room, where a late afternoon tea and light snacks are served, and reinstituted the hotel's long-gone bar. One of the largest hotels on the National Register of Historic Places, the San Carlos has fared better than many of its downtown counterparts in other Arizona cities by virtue of its proximity - and availability as an overflow lodging - to newer, nearby hotels, and its walking-distance accessibility to the Convention Center, downtown corporate and financial headquarters, and to the county's court buildings.

acquisition, the beautiful crystal chandeliers that were imported from Austria in 1957." Last year, the Melikian family's Great Western Realty Corp., re-acquired the hotel and, in the words of longtime restoration expert Gregory Melikian, "picked up the goal, once again, of bringing back a bit of the charm and character of the heart of downtown Phoenix as it was in the 1930s to '50s." To complement the hotel's 113 sleeping rooms and three suites, the Melikians have brought back the once-popular bistro in the lobby of the San Carlos, the Palm Room, where a late afternoon tea and light snacks are served, and reinstituted the hotel's long-gone bar. One of the largest hotels on the National Register of Historic Places, the San Carlos has fared better than many of its downtown counterparts in other Arizona cities by virtue of its proximity - and availability as an overflow lodging - to newer, nearby hotels, and its walking-distance accessibility to the Convention Center, downtown corporate and financial headquarters, and to the county's court buildings.

The restored San Carlos is making its mark as an oasis amid the downtown bustle.

HISTORIC TUCSON'S HOTEL CONGRESS

Tucked away and low-key, Tucson's little (41-room) Hotel Congress sits across the street from the city's Amtrak station and may be better known to touring students from Europe and Japan than it is to Tucson natives. It is listed prominently in Youth Hostel Association directories abroad as a low-cost and clean hostelry.

Dating to 1919, the Congress's Tap Room quickly became a favorite hangout for Tucson's movers and shakers in the flapper era of the '20s and '30s. It was the result of a fire that swept the top floor of the three-story Congress on the night of January 22, 1934, however, that brought the hotel national fame. Trapped on the third floor by the raging flames, four men and three women guests had to be rescued by Tucson firemen using aerial ladders. The guests insisted, however, that firemen return to the burning building to retrieve their expensive luggage.

Recognized from magazine pictures several days later as members of John Dillinger's gang, the men walked into an ambush by Tucson police, and their reluctance to abandon the luggage becam eclear: inside were handcuffs, bullet-proof vests, machine guns, and a flour sack containing $6,000 in currency. A few days later, Dillinger himself walked into a second trap laid by Tucson police.

Now just two stories the fire-gutted third floor was never restored the Congress is the scene of an ongoing renovation that began with electrical upgrading, replacing aluminum with wood around doorways, and reconstructing the leaded-glass transoms and white marble facades. The Tap Room remains a focal point, and a former dining room on the first floor that was closed for 15 years has been refurbished and reopened as a weekend discotheque. The rooms are being restored with furnishings from the '20s.

Big, little, downtown or no-town, Arizona's historic hotels have had their days of splendor and their days of despair as tastes and traffic patterns have shifted. Financially, a few of them are hanging by their fingertips, but all are dug in, polishing the old copperware and their turn-of-the-century furniture and waiting.

Author's Note: This article completes the series on the history and present-day realities of early Arizona hotels. Last month, we discussed the Gadsden, Copper Queen, Cochise, St. Michael, and the Vendome. In a future issue, we will cover the Tonto Natural Bridge Lodge, which also is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Hotels