Lodging

Where the couple landed was DreamCatcher Inn at Chiricahua, which original owners John and Julia Kirk had operated for nearly a quarter-century. The Kirks were ready to retire, and the numbers made sense. And so, for the past year, Keesee and Robles have been making the B&B their own while keeping regular guests happy. “Those are some hard shoes to fill,” Robles says. “John and Julia were really great cooks.” Here, Keesee interjects: “But we’re really great cooks as well.” “I was getting to that,” says the man now known as “Chef Ray” in online reviews of the B&B.

Today, the horses and the boxcars are long gone, but the B&B still honors the site’s legacy by offering a nice balance between historical charm and modern amenities.

“What’s stayed the same is the feeling you get when you’re here,” says Amy Draper, an eighth-generation Tucsonan who owns the B&B. “What’s evolved is its use, but not its character. The inn gives its occupants a sense of place, history and connection to the area.”

And a little pampering as well. 

Travelers through Oak Creek Canyon might know the property as the Butterfly Garden Inn, which it was during the previous owner’s tenure. But that name covers only one chapter of its history — which started in the 1920s, when the first five cabins were built. Those buildings “have an attention to detail that you don’t often find in early cabins,” Harrell says.

Owned by the Arizona Snowbowl ski area, Basecamp was known as the Ski Lift Lodge before a 2021 remodel to update and modernize the accommodations. The renovated rooms are warm and cozy, with crisp white linens and walls adorned with stunning photography of the region’s landscapes. 

The B&B uses the cabins as six guest rooms, each with a different theme. The Cataract Creek Room is all about fishing and is accented with blue decor, while the Antlers Room pays homage to the large hunting community in Williams.

Now, more than 120 years later, you’ll find jeans only on the patrons of The Clinkscale hotel. With six private rooms upstairs and a popular restaurant on the floor that once housed the mercantile, the building has once again been brought to life — this time by Eric and Michelle Jurisin of The Haunted Group, which owns and operates several other properties in the Verde Valley, including Jerome’s Haunted Hamburger restaurant and Cottonwood’s Pizzeria Bocce and Tavern Hotel. 

Arizona is home to two of the 30 Graduate properties, found in college-anchored towns throughout the U.S. and U.K. The chain’s first hotel in Arizona was Graduate Tempe, a retrofit of the old Twin Palms just south of the Arizona State University campus. Graduate Tucson, which opened in October 2020, is a new 15-story building in Main Gate Square, a pedestrian-friendly dining and shopping destination just west of UA’s campus.

The property’s new life as a dude ranch began in 2009, when a German investment group built 17 guest rooms in the style of an Old West town. Each room has either a king bed, two queen beds or one of each size, and each is
individually themed and decorated. All rooms have private baths, and the ones on the east side have back patios with panoramic views of the distant Dragoon Mountains. Just down the road, and visible from the ranch, is the stone
monument at the final resting place of Ed Schieffelin, the prospector whose 1877 silver strike spurred Tombstone’s boom.

“The process was way more fun than I expected,” says Schnepf — who, along with her husband, Mark, owns and manages Schnepf Farms in Queen Creek. She spent eight months taking the trailer apart and putting it back together, meticulously preserving the period appliances, cabinetry and fixtures. Next, she bought two 1969 Airstreams in “disgusting” condition, along with a 1955 Terry Pullman Train. Schnepf fully restored all of them, and the farm’s Cozy Peach lodging business came to life in the Sonoran Desert.

That’s an apt description for this old motor lodge on Tucson’s west side. Since 2018, the McCoy has been making waves on social media for its prolific displays of local art. But just as key to the hotel’s success, its staff says, is that guests are in tune with its community-centric vibe. “We tend to attract people who are about connecting and community,” says Norma Lopez, the McCoy’s assistant general manager. “We get a lot of neighbors talking to each other and sharing contact information because they hit it off really well.”