The Fryes — Karen, a software engineer, and Matt, a carpenter — were living in Tucson several years ago when they took a road trip to this old mining town at the foot of the Coronado Trail. “We fell in love with the landscape,” Matt recalls, but a dilapidated building along Park Avenue, on the east side of the San Francisco River, also caught their eye.
A project of the Ajo-based International Sonoran Desert Alliance, the nonprofit inn and its conference center are on the 7-acre Curley School campus, which once housed Ajo’s elementary school and other educational buildings. Constructed over the first half of the 20th century, the classic Spanish Revival complex, complete with a bell tower, was a point of pride when Ajo was a booming copper mining town. But in the 1980s, the mine closed and many of Ajo’s residents left with it.
But Shep’s also boasts a history as rich as that of this former silver mining boomtown. Its thick adobe walls date to the mid-to-late 1800s, when the building was constructed as a stagecoach stop. Later, it was used to house miners and their families, and after that, it became a motor court along Second Street, which at that time was the main route through town.
That place is Backland, which opened in September 2022 on a 160-acre Kaibab National Forest inholding about 10 miles southeast of Williams. The parcel was homesteaded in the 1920s and hosted ranching and sheepherding operations over the years. Now, it’s home to a concept that combines an immersive, ecologically conscious experience in nature with many of the comforts you’d find in a luxury hotel.
At first, you might feel a tinge of panic: What will I do with myself? But after a few hours of sitting in an Adirondack chair on the front porch while watching deer grazing in the meadow, you’ll stop thinking about your phone and start listening to the wind blowing through the pines.
Kirk and Sherry Sinclair are the owners of Historic Shankle Ranch, where the treehouse is located. Sherry says the idea came from a desire to provide a space for the family’s grandchildren. But once the Sinclairs purchased more property, they turned the treehouse into a rental so others could enjoy it.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to stay here,” Sherry says. “It’s a totally different experience — it’s like you’re disconnected from the world.”
“There was lots of internal excitement about making sure it was done properly, but also celebrating the fact that we’re making an exciting new structure here,” says Samuel Langner, the community relations manager for Xanterra Travel Collection, which operates the South Rim’s hotels.
Moore and his wife purchased the property in 2021 for a similar reason: They love the area and enjoy taking their own family to Tombstone. “We just love that it is very family friendly and attracts all sorts of people,” Moore says. “We have people from 9 days old to 90 years old come to visit.”
There’s a good reason the place feels so inviting: It’s been the Sayres’ family home for more than three decades, and they’ve been renovating and expanding it since they moved in. After their two children grew up and moved out, they had a lot of extra space, so they began running a three-room B&B in October 2018.
“I wanted my kids to grow up in a ranch setting, surrounded by animals and space to run around,” Vendituoli says. “I went to see Rancho Milagro and fell in love with the property. Although it needed a lot of work, it’s in a beautiful, secluded location abutting the historic Babocomari Ranch, an original Spanish land grant that is 3 miles wide and 30 miles long. Rancho Milagro actually sits on property that was part of that land grant. Another selling point was the fact that my parents live next door, so my kids can walk or ride over to be with them whenever they want.”
