Lodging

The revamped motel opened in January 2023 with 48 rooms, an outdoor entertainment venue and award-winning restaurant Chilte on-site. According to Rebel Hospitality’s vice president of marketing and brand, Cynthia Davis, the opportunity to revitalize the Egyptian was a no-brainer. “We really had this vision to turn it into something completely different that Phoenix doesn’t really have much of,” Davis says. “The fact that it’s in the Grand Avenue arts district made it even more attractive.”

When Tanya Duarte describes the historic Gadsden Hotel to first-time visitors, she compares it to a geode. "You look at the outside of the building, and you see a pretty generic 'rock' of a building," says Duarte, the hotel's manager. "It doesn't really stand out. Then you bust it open, walk in and it's this gorgeous gem inside."

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.”