Clark Gable Slept Here

AN INN for All Seasons

Frank Lloyd Wright and I have something in common: an appreciation of the bar at Tucson's Arizona Inn. The airy old lounge with its domed skylight framed by vines is the only such place I've ever frequented enough to say, "Make mine the usual, if you please." June, the waitress, always knew what my father and I would order when we stopped by after work.I don't know if Wright liked the deep-cushioned couches grouped for conversation, the stately white grand piano Bob Linesch commands, or the gleaming mahogany bar, but that the famous architect repaired to the calm, obscure, dignified Inn surprises me no whit.

When my friend Brad Behan told me there was such a great place I had to see, he described it as a hideaway Hemingway would have gone to if he'd visited Tucson. Writers, architects who wouldn't want to settle in with a potion of choice and enjoy the conversation?

It's not recorded what Wright's response to the Inn's library was, but the high-ceilinged book-lined study with the ox-size fireplace beckons to and beguiles most everyone. With its afternoon tea, over which Maynard Pike presides like a major domo from Central Casting, its 30-foot pine tree scenting the hall of holiday during Christmas, and its elegantly worn high-backed chairs, the library is the setting of many a whispered conversation, momentous meeting, and stately reception.

Patty Doar, manager and granddaughter of the Inn's founder, Isabella Greenway, said she sees an increasing number of young people drawn to the landmark, perhaps for a glimpse of graciousness they've never known.

"Recently I saw a young man bring his girlfriend here, and, while he showed her the library, I eavesdropped shamelessly," she confessed. "He said, 'This room makes you feel like .. you could even write a letter!'"The Arizona Inn does seem steeped in nostalgia for what we never had; it's the family mansion we wish our grandparents had built with old money in Carmel or Cape Cod. It's breakfast as elegant as dinner anywhere else. It's fat brown birds feasting off crumbs by your feet as you unwind on the patio while watching a thunderstorm rage in the mountains. And for some fortunates, it's an annual pilgrimage that began decades ago. Doar said the longtime winter visitors who came as children now bring their children and their grandchildren.

Many consider the Arizona Inn the grande dame of the state's hotels; opened in 1930, she is technically a senior citizen. But like her founder, this lady makes aging a graceful art.

The staff of the 80-room hideaway in the middle of town has two priorities: making every visitor extremely comfortable and keeping Isabella Greenway's spirit alive. (In accordance with both, I spoke with the manager's secretary about coming by. "I'll ask for you at the desk," I said. "Not at all," she replied. "You just relax in the library, and we will come to you.") Had you visited the Arizona Inn 40 years ago, you would have noticed the territorial architecture with thick sunset-color adobe walls and cobalt-blue trim and the elegance of startlingly green lawns and flowers fairly spilling their borders along brick paths. You might have peeked into the dining room, where lanterns and heavy silver were being readied for dinner or strolled the white arched lobby, footsteps muffled by thick carpet. Had you gone past the clay tennis courts to the pool, you might have seen couples eating lunch on wooden chaises near whimsically painted windows while staff hovered benevolently but alertly nearby. You might have gone to your room and found an antique writing desk, a closet large enough for the steamer trunks guests who wintered here would bring, a small collection of entertaining books, and fine old linens. And today you would find exactly the same things.

The only big difference is that had you walked into the Arizona Inn during that long ago time, you would likely have seen Isabella Greenway attending guests' needs. An elegant woman, she literally caused a traffic jam touring Paris at the age of 16. In photographs, she appears in large shady hats and gauzy white dresses.

An Inn

But she was far from merely decorative. Doar remembers her grandmother being in the center of activity, looking for fun and making the least involved feel included. “She was always curious and interested; had an enormous appetite for whatever was going on,” Doar says of the lady who also was Arizona's first congresswoman (1933 to 1937). “She would never do anything I'd consider indecorous, but she was in no way rigid. Nothing could have been more boring to Isabella Greenway than having only one kind of people in your life or your inn.” Greenway began the Arizona Inn with little thought of status or profit; she was merely becoming her own customer for piles of newly manufactured furniture. After World War I, in a characteristically energetic and empathetic act, Greenway had started a furniture factory called the Arizona Hut. Servicemen weakened by illness and mustard gas came in droves to Arizona to recover and couldn't work strenuous schedules, so Greenway founded the company (named after their refuge from the front lines) where veterans could work flexible hours. But the Crash of '29 brought an end to Hut purchases from such customers as Marshall Field and Abercrombie & Fitch. Faced with $22,000 owed to herself as investor, Greenway cleverly created a brand new market for the Hut's furniture: the Arizona Inn.

The Inn still houses many Hut originals: dining-room tables and chairs and desks and beds. Other antiques came from Greenway's home and private collections; there are 19th-century Audubon prints, relics in the Africa Room from her safari, and antique Spanish colonial ceramics.

The Arizona Inn not only offers history, it lets you add a layer of your own in a guestbook begun in 1930 which you're invited to sign.

I can walk through the back garden, past the splashing fountain, and remember the chamber music playing at a wedding one balmy evening as my friend John Leinberger watched his bride, Rhonda, coming toward him across the grass. I can see ghosts of my former self and Bruce Babbitt, before he was secretary of the Interior, having tea in the library. I can see my mother toasting my first professional post with champagne, and Bob Linesch playing “Snowfall” when he saw my father walk into the bar. I'm sure the walls of the Tucson Room are saturated with insight from the Off the Record breakfast debates.

The Arizona Inn, like a grandmother with a copious lap, has room for all our memories. Patty Doar said one woman told her she liked weddings at the Inn so much she got married there twice.

The staff honors Greenway's promise of privacy. Doar quotes her Uncle Jack, who managed the Inn before her, as saying, “We don't promise people privacy just until they die.” She adds, “If you begin to talk about famous names, the boundaries blur.” But other sources will tell you the Duke and Duchess of Windsor stayed here. And Maynard Pike will recount being in the far corner of the dining room before it was carpeted, readying something for dinner, and hearing resolute footsteps the length of the room. It was the Duke, who came just to thank him for his hospitality. Lowell Thomas praised the Inn when he spoke to Tucson's vaunted Sunday Evening Forum; Clark Gable was known to be a guest, as was Gary Cooper. Since Eleanor Roosevelt is seen in photographs at the Inn (Greenway was a friend and bridesmaid to the Roosevelts), Maynard Pike will tell you she was a truly gracious lady, “but always looked as if she needed a lady's maid to give her a good brush-up.” He won't tell you what famous female he denied dinner service because she was wearing slacks, or which black singer stayed there because at the time Greenway was the only innkeeper in Tucson who would take her as a guest. (A true lady, Greenway lived out good breeding by valuing people, not ranking them; when she hired a black worker, she quenched rumblings among the staff by seating him next to her at lunch.) The only stories the staff will recount are anonymous; Bill Wertz, who's spent 35 years at the Inn, says when he started out doing nighttime accounting he also carried luggage and handled safety deposit boxes. He tells of women coming in the evening, splendidly dressed for dinner, to get their jewels from the safe.

“Not only would I get them out, I had to show them what to wear,” he says with a proud smile. “They'd want to know if it should be the pearls or the diamonds.” It's those services the kind of things a relative would do during an extended visit that make the Arizona Inn wrap itself around the hearts of its guests. Pike still recalls that Mr. Room 187 needed a no-salt diet, and every winter for years his special menu was one of Pike's automatic actions. Bobbie Rosenberg, who's presided over the gift shop for 20 years, keeps file cards on guests' relatives so she can help them shop without duplicating a present. “I know what their grandchildren like,” she says with a proprietary air. Indeed, that's what she believes sets the Inn apart: “We all kind of think it belongs to us.” She remembers staying at the Arizona Inn during World War II and paying $7 a (PRECEDING PANEL, PAGE 34) Since 1930 Tucson's Arizona Inn has cosseted guests who appreciate both its comfortable charm and privacy. (PAGE 35) When Isabella Greenway began the Inn, she imprinted it with her impeccable style and high standards.

for All Seasons

(OPPOSITE PAGE, LEFT AND RIGHT) Among the celebrities who stayed at the Inn, and doubtless strolled its flower-lined walkways, was actor Clark Gable.

(LEFT) The library offers guests a quiet spot to enjoy coffee and conversation.

(BELOW, LEFT) Looking uncharacteristically tousled, actor Gary Cooper relaxed at the Inn during a visit.

(BELOW, RIGHT) Finding a spot to be alone or chat with friends is no problem at the Inn. Here wooden chairs beneath a shady ramada invite guests to linger and listen to the soothing sounds of a water fountain.

night; Pike recalls the menu in 1951 with rates of $1.50 for breakfast, $2 for lunch, and $3 for dinner. That was back when Greenway was still involved in the Inn's daily routine, and once upbraided him for using a tablecloth instead of the Irish linen mats. Told the guests had requested a cloth, she just sighed. A woman of strong ideas and definite tastes, Greenway is legendary for letting no detail slip through the cracks.

Doar remembers her grandmother's near-obsession with comfort when she was shepherding the construction of the Inn. "She made workmen carry sawhorses and a pillow," she said. "My grandmother would lie down where beds would be to see what the view would be looking out a window." When the pool and porches were added, Greenway had posts set outso she could follow the sun's progress across the sky and see how far awnings would have to go to keep glare out of loungers' eyes. She cloistered her guests; most of the rooms open onto patios with entrances tucked behind tall hedges. But you can do only so much. Doar laughs describing the staff's frantic efforts to keep the arrival of a famous rock group a secret, denying to all callers they were coming and then the driver parked the clearly labeled tour bus right in front of the entrance.

Regardless of your position in life, you feel like a Person of Consequence at the Inn, having your coffee poured from silver urns at breakfast, wandering past the ramada with its palm-frond roof and Adirondack-type chairs, making footprints on the freshly vacuumed carpet in the rooms. You might feel, as Sir John WheelerBennett wrote, "cosseted and cherished and made one of the family in these enrapturing conditions."

WHEN YOU GO

The Arizona Inn is tucked between Speedway and Grant in Tucson, so take either exit off Interstate 10 and go east to Campbell; the Inn is to the east of Campbell on Elm. For information, call (602) 325-1541 or toll-free 1 (800) 933-1093; or write the Arizona Inn, 2200 E. Elm St., Tucson, AZ 85719.