La Posada's Rebirth

SAVING The Once-bustling Winslow Hotel Escapes the Wrecking Ball and Comes to Life Again LA POSADA

When I first saw La Posada Hotel, the building had been closed to the public for many years. Only a few working lights illuminated the interior, yet the dust and the dimness could not hide the charm and elegance of the old hotel and the many architectural touches that turn an ordinary building into a work of art.Today La Posada, "the resting place," has reopened, refreshed to its earlier grandeur. Once again, it has become the tourist mecca its planners meant it to be. Twenty of the rooms have been refurbished and the restoration work continues. The dining room has become the place to eat in Winslow.

Sandwiched between old Route 66 and the Santa Fe railroad tracks in Winslow, the sprawling, soft-pink two-story building in the shape of a capital E always looks a bit out of place in its workaday setting. For me in those bygone days before the hotel's rebirth, it held an understated attraction an aura of a faded beauty with a fascinating story to tell.

That first day I entered the hotel, I joined a reunion of former Harvey Girls, those storied women who waited tables at Harvey Houses up and down the Santa Fe line. Now in their 60s, 70s and older, the women brimmed with excitement at the chance to revisit the interior of the hotel where they had worked so long ago. Most of the furnishings had been spirited away, but what was left remained impressive.

We saw flagstone hallways, handpainted windowpanes, antique lighting fixtures, a curved staircase, wrought-iron railings, balconies, a ballroom with a smoke-darkened fireplace, large rooms with floors of peggedand-grooved oak planks of varying widths, nooks and alcoves and everywhere you looked arches of different sizes and styles.

La Posada, the last and greatest Harvey House, was once the heart and soul of Winslow. So many movie stars, celebrities and famous aviators stopped there to dine or sleep that local residents became blase about distinguished faces alighting from Santa Fe's passenger trains or from the silver DC3s at Winslow Airport.

Charles Lindbergh, often mobbed in other cities, was able to walk the streets just like anyone else a freedom he enjoyed so much that he returned to Winslow again and again.

Film stars who stayed at La Posada included Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Mae West, Jimmy Stewart, Ginger Rogers, Will Rogers, Cary Grant, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, the Barrymore brothers, Alice Faye, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. In fact, Lombard spent her last night at La Posada before flying to a fatal crash in Nevada during World War II.

Fairbanks, the Barrymore brothers, Alice Faye, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard. In fact, Lombard spent her last night at La Posada before flying to a fatal crash in Nevada during World War II.

Among the famous aviators the real celebrities in pre-war America who visited were Jimmy Doolittle, who made the first bombing raid over Tokyo; magnate Howard Hughes, a flier and airline owner before he became a Hollywood producer; Wiley Post; Amelia Earhart; Gen. Hap Arnold; air racers Roscoe Turner, George Armistead, Pancho Barnes, Jackie Cochran and Benny Howard; and, of course, Lindbergh, the Lone Eagle, who designed Winslow's airport, and his wife, Anne Morrow, who flew her own plane.

When the Santa Fe closed the hotel in

1957 it deeply affected Winslow, which had been buffeted by economic forces following World War II. Then Interstate 40 bypassed the town in 1977, making Route 66 - the Mother Road that had drawn thousands of travelers to Winslow - obsolete. New, long-range jetliners flew over Winslow's airport, once the biggest and busiest in the state. With Americans taking to the air and hitting the roads in shiny new cars, traffic on Santa Fe's glamorous passenger trains withered and almost died. And Harvey Houses like La Posada, dependent on passenger trains, began closing one by one. Winslow, a railroad town founded in 1881, had looked to La Posada for identity, and the townsfolk basked in the reflected glory of the famous resort. "La Posada was the cultural center of the city," said Janice Griffith, director of the Old Trails Museum in Winslow. "People remember the special occasions when they would dress up in their Sunday best and dine in the Harvey House Restaurant, which had superb food and service. "They remember going to the depot when the trains arrived - those wonderful, famous passenger trains in the golden age of railroads to watch riders get off and maybe spot a movie star or celebrity. "They remember gathering on the hotel lawn on a warm summer night to listen to a concert by Santa Fe's Indian Band. They remember Navajos and Hopis selling curios to the tourists, the tennis matches on the hotel's courts, the stable of horses guests could ride, the huge Harveycars that took guests to Indian reservations or the Petrified Forest." When the hotel closed, the Santa Fe saved it from destruction by moving its division headquarters into the building. Santa Fe redesigned the interior with false walls, lower acoustic ceilings, fluorescent lighting and gray tile glued over the Linmosaic and flagstone floors. However, the railroad found the building expensive to maintain and in the late 1980s decided to move out and put La Posada-up for sale. There were no takers. Santa Fe desperately offered La Posada to the City of Winslow for $1, but the city balked, saying fixing it

The Dream-Inspired Legacy of Architect Mary Colter

Hesitantly, I opened the old hotel's heavy door and stepped inside. There was no one in sight and this gave me a chance to study the rehabilitated version of famed Southwestern architect Mary Colter's prized creation, La Posada Hotel. My eyes were drawn to the high, arched ceilings, the spacious corridors and down again to the rock floors, then on to the adobe walls decorated with artwork. Stepping forward, I saw several benches and pieces of oversized dark-stained wooden furniture from the old Southwest come into focus. In the background, I heard the soft sound of a chorus singing a Gregorian chant. It was like traveling back in time to Shangri-la. Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter designed this most sophisticated of all Fred Harvey railroad stopovers with a vision. She hoped to give guests the illusion they were staying in the hacienda of a wealthy Spanish don who had filled the place with fascinating and priceless objects collected during his world travels. Colter had been designing projects for the Fred Harvey Company for 25 years when she was picked to create La Posada in 1928. She possessed an uncanny skill and knew how to imagine a perfect blend of contemporary design with the styles of Navajos, Hopis and the first Spanish settlers. It was for this touch of genius that she had come to be regarded as among the greatest of the Southwestern architects. Fred Harvey Company gave Colter total control. She would draw the plans, supervise construction, choose the furnishings and design the gardens. She would even decide the color of the paint for the walls and select the rugs and furnishings for every guest room. She had a track record, after all. At the Grand Canyon, she had created the famed Hopi House, El Tovar hotel and Phantom Ranch. More recently, Colter had completed Chicago's Union Station and La Fonda hotel in Santa Fe. She was 60, still energetic and had a well-earned reputation for irascibility. Colter swore like a sailor. She smoked three packs of cigarettes a day. And she never stopped working. Workmen respected her ability. But they resented her sharp tongue and refusal to cut any corners to make a job less arduous for them. During construction of the Hopi House, she gained notoriety by forcing workers to move 200-pound rocks from place to place until they were perfectly matched. She even took a perverse pride in the knowledge that her laborers feared and disliked her. "That's all right, "Colter said, "at least I know they'll do what I tell them." She worked at La Posada for two years before it opened in 1930. When completed, the project cost the Fred Harvey Co. an unprecedented sum. But officials were happy. She had designed the greatest railroad hotel of them all. Quickly, La Posada became the favorite stopover for tourists heading east and west along the Santa Fe railway tracks. The front doors of the hotel and its up and maintenance would cost too much. The hotel, the second Harvey House in Winslow, was completed in 1930 at the thenunheard of cost of more than $2 million. Mary Jane Colter, the Fred Harvey Company's long-time architect and designer, had been given carte blanche to build the resort.

Colter must have hit Winslow like a ton of bricks. Autocratic and unbending, she terrorized employees, insisting on her way or no way. She tolerated no incompetence or shortcomings. She buzzed around town in a massive blue roadster, chain-smoking cigarettes and using coarse language.

Winslow loved Colter and her eccentricities. The day the hotel was dedicated, with many Santa Fe officials looking on, a trio of Winslow cowboys rode their horses into the lobby, scooped up a delighted, laughing Colter and sat her down on the counter. Then, firing their six-guns into the ceiling, they rode out leaving the many VIPs quivering in consternation.

La Posada opened in 1930 in the depths of the Great Depression and probably never recouped its construction costs. Train travel declined drastically, but Santa Fe kept the hotel open and, as the nation slowly recovered from the Depression, it seemed poised on the verge of success.

But again fate, in the form of World War II, intervened and tourism ground to another halt. Still, La Posada played a big part in the war. Endless troop trains bound for California and the Pacific war stopped at La Posada, where they received priority treatment over other customers. Retired Harvey Girls weregardens even faced the tracks to greet passengers from the dozen trains that stopped every day.

The hotel also served as a gateway to the Grand Canyon with Harvey providing ground transportation to it and every Indian reservation within a day's auto drive. It was also blessed by the fact that Route 66 ran right by the hotel doors.

Nothing could go wrong, it seemed. Soon, the three restaurants within La Posada were serving a thousand meals a day. The hotel became a destination for celebrities from all walks of life. Harry Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Howard Hughes, Charles Lindbergh, Clark Gable and many others stayed there.

But then history played a dirty trick on La Posada.

When the showcase hotel closed its doors in 1957, Mary Colter was 87 years old and living in retirement in Santa Fe.

"There's such a thing as living too long," she said to a friend. She was heartbroken. Months later, Mary Colter died.

After staying the night at La Posada, I sat in the parking lot and studied the building's exterior and grounds. I have what I guess is a kind of down-home architectural appreciation.

When I was growing up in the Bronx, my idea of architecture was the lobby of the Loew's Paradise Theater on the Grand Concourse. But then during my early years in the newspaper business, I was frequently dispatched to various Chicago neighborhoods to write stories about Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright buildings, which were then in danger of being ripped down.

Sullivan and Wright were roughly Colter's contemporaries. And the three have this quality in common: Something about their work clings to life.

It's that way with La Posada. Before pulling away, I thought about Mary Colter working her heart out to create a place that she hoped would remain her monument. Then I remembered Allan Affeldt, who is lovingly restoring the old place one room at a time, and what he has done to save it for her.

What would Mary Colter think? She would smile.

Recruited to help the staff feed, encourage and support soldiers on their way to war.

Sometimes, in the scheme of events, a small, seemingly insignificant thing can cause a revolution. With La Posada that event was a water line buried under the closed hotel's front lawn, which broke for the umpteenth time. Santa Fe decided not to repair it, and shut off the water that kept the grass green.

The summer heat hit, the lawns started dying, and the leaves on the cottonwoods turned yellow for lack of water. Winslow suddenly woke up and created an uproar.

"All those lovely flower gardens, the trees that shaded so many picnics, the green lawns, were all going to die. It was horrible, unspeakable, a tragedy. It meant that Winslow really had to get serious about its future," Griffith said.

The citizens waged a grassroots rebellion. Outraged residents met and vowed to keep the grounds green even if they had to do the work. Calling themselves "the Gardening Angels," they threatened to buy all the garden hoses in the city, attach them to their home lawn faucets and string them across the streets all the way to La Posada. Teenagers, working men, housewives and senior citizens turned out for "garden duty," with care for portions of the lawns and gardens parceled out to individuals and families.

They cut the grass with their own lawnmowers, trimmed the hedges and planted new flowers they bought themselves. Santa Fe and Winslow officials were persuaded to get their act together. City workers fixed the water line, and Santa Fe agreed to turn the water back on and pay the water bills, but the Gardening Angels continued to tend the acres of gardens.

Dedicated Winslow history buffs worked to get La Posada on the National Register of Historic Places. Next the group landed the first of three hefty historical preservation grants. Allan Affeldt, of Laguna Beach, California, saw La Posada listed as a threatened landmark by the National Trust for Historical Preservation and with a group of investors purchased the hotel in 1997. Paul Westlake, who did the restoration work on the historic Orpheum Theatre in downtown Phoenix, was hired as architect.

to get La Posada on the National Register of Historic Places. Next the group landed the first of three hefty historical preservation grants. Allan Affeldt, of Laguna Beach, California, saw La Posada listed as a threatened landmark by the National Trust for Historical Preservation and with a group of investors purchased the hotel in 1997. Paul Westlake, who did the restoration work on the historic Orpheum Theatre in downtown Phoenix, was hired as architect.

Following Colter's style, Affeldt's brotherin-law, Keith Mion, re-created the hotel furniture using the Spanish Colonial style and the rough, handmade look of Mexican workmanship. Original La Posada furnishings have resurfaced and been donated to the hotel. Some items were returned under protest.

Griffith learned that five of the six original Colter-designed waiting room benches in the La Posada depot had been removed and sent to the Amtrak depot in Flagstaff. "We didn't want to lose the last one, too, so we "kidnapped" it and hid it in the Old Trails Museum," Griffith said. Then she wrote a letter to the president of Amtrak asking for the return of the five benches in Flagstaff.

"He was an old railroader, and I think he remembered La Posada. He wrote me a letter giving permission to take back the benches," said Griffith.

She sent her husband, Art, the baseball coach at Winslow High School, and a couple of husky team members to Flagstaff to retrieve the heavy solid-oak benches.

"The Flagstaff depot boss wouldn't give them the benches. He really got mad. But we had the letter, and he finally agreed to give us three benches. Then our Winslow mayor got the ear of the Flagstaff mayor, and in the interest of sister cities, the depot staff finally agreed to turn over the remaining two," Griffith said.

To date, 20 rooms, some of them tworoom suites with fireplaces, have been furnished in Mary Colter's style and are available to the public. Affeldt hopes to have 40 done by the end of 2001. No two rooms are alike. They are outfitted with rough-hewn bed frames, made in Mexico out of carved wood or wrought iron, and old Spanish chests and benches. Each room is named after a film star or celebrity who stayed at the hotel.

Workers tore out all the Santa Fe office cubicles and peeled back linoleum floors, revealing Mary Colter's graceful arches and stone floors. They installed a modern kitchen, the colorful Turquoise Dining Room and the Martini Bar. Dinners, like the old Harvey House meals, rate as top-notch and feature wild game such as roasted venison and elk, grilled quail, plus some old-time railroad fare such as baked egg dishes and a Topeka steak and egg platter.

General manager Dan Lutzick said work is progressing on the restoration of the hotel banquet room and gift shop. Soon part of the asphalt parking lot will be removed and in its place an enlarged lawn and patio will be installed by the new front entrance, which now faces Route 66 rather than the railroad tracks.

"The public has been outstanding, and we've enjoyed good patronage even during reconstruction," Affeldt said. "The hotel is really becoming a mecca for weddings. Last year we had 20, some from as far away as Vancouver and South Carolina."

And the old hotel's wide hallways once again ring with the voices of travelers from around the world. AH