Painted Desert Inn

January 5, 2011 by 7 Comments
Painted Desert Inn and Autumn Blossoms

Autumn Blossoms, Painted Desert Inn © 2010 Bo Mackison

On our swing through some of the Southwestern National Parks in October, we stopped at the Petrified Forest National Park in the east central region of Arizona. This park also includes the Painted Desert and this building, the Painted Desert Inn Museum. The architectural style of the inn was influenced by Pueblo Indian dwellings and Early Spanish architecture. It was built to harmonize with its surroundings and blends well with the surrounding Painted Desert.

Garden at the Painted Desert Inn II

Desert Garden and Painted Desert Inn © 2010 Bo Mackison

The original inn was built in the 1920s, mostly of available stone and petrified rocks and the builders used a mud mortar to hold the structure together. It was a trading post and had a lunch counter, but it had no water or electricity. The Park Service purchased the building in 1936 and used WPA funds and Civilian Conservation Corps labor to essentially rebuild the entire structure.

In the late 1930s, National Park Service architect Lyle Bennett redesigned the building, utilizing the Pueblo Revival Style. The Painted Desert Inn re-opened for business on July 4, 1940 and was a stop on the Historic Route 66. (Petrified Forest National Park is the only national park that has a portion of the Historic Route 66 within its boundaries.) The inn’s life as an oasis in the middle of the desert lasted only a couple of years, and ended with the beginning of World War II. Traveling was greatly curtailed and the inn closed in 1942.

Not to be ignored for long, the Inn again opened and was operated from 1947 through 1963 by the Fred Harvey Company, a company who was a concessionaire in many of the Western National Parks. Then, after sitting unused for a dozen years, the building was scheduled for demolition in 1975. However a public outpouring of concern for the historic building convinced the Park Service to save the Painted Desert Inn. It opened in 1976 as a museum and bookstore on a limited basis.

Painted Desert Inn, National Historic Landmark

Painted Desert Inn, National Historic Landmark © 2010 Bo Mackison

It again underwent extensive repair in 2004-06 and then reopened as the museum and bookstore now pictured. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and is also a National Historic Landmark.

The building is a stunning example of architecture, and has a history well worth exploring. There are exhibits inside the Inn which shed light on its fascinating history. A walk around the entire structure and through its many rooms reveals small architectural gems such as arched doorways and windows, hand crafted metal lamps, and an intriguing wooden beam support system in the ceilings.

In the next posts, I’ll feature the interior of the Painted Desert Inn, so lovingly and meticulously restored, and filled with art and intricate design features, and also photographs of the Painted Desert and the Petrified Forest landscapes.

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Daydreaming in The Garden Room

February 24, 2010 by 7 Comments
Taliesin West - Garden Room

Taliesin West – Garden Room

I would like to be relaxing in this room – right this very moment! Maybe with a book in hand, or a notebook filled with words that flowed easily from mind to paper, and so now my writing project is neatly done.

Maybe I’m drinking an iced tea, or even better, indulging in a fudge brownie and a glass of cold milk. And while I’m daydreaming, I’ll go all out – the sunlight is streaming through the windows, and warming my face. Warming my soul.

A Nice Place to Relax

A Nice Place to Relax

Say, this is a daydream, right? Maybe Mr. Wright will walk through the door, in an amiable and expansive mood, and share a few of his theories on architecture, or better yet, tell stories of the happenings of his boyhood, about the land he lived on and loved, and where he built the other Taliesin, the home and studio where he spent his summers, Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin.

Taliesin West, Scottsdale Arizona

Blue Seating in the Garden Room

This is in the Garden Room at Taliesin West, Mr. Wright’s winter home and studio on Scottsdale, Arizona. It’s a sprawling complex, now the winter home for the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture. The school moves east to summer in Wisconsin from May through October, just as Wright and his family did when they were alive.

Amusingly enough, on a recent tour through Taliesin West, our guide was an architect and an instructor at the architecture school. He had made the acquaintance of Wright several times. He mentioned that one of Wright’s express wishes was “Don’t ever attach my name to anything having to do with a school.” Though Wright appeared to get his way much of the time, seems no one paid attention to that request (or demand) once he was no longer around to speak up.

Taliesin West is a wonderful space to visit, the tour guide was knowledgeable and witty, and had a rather genius way of passing on Wright’s heritage and philosophy.

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Arches, Columns, and Tiles

February 13, 2010 by 3 Comments
Architectural Details

Architectural Details

As part of the walking tour of downtown Tucson, accomplished by following a stripe of turquoise paint on the pavement, you cross through an interior courtyard of the Pima County Courthouse and pass through this columned pathway.

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Pima County Courthouse

February 12, 2010 by 5 Comments
Tuscon Arizona

in Tucson Arizona

The courthouse, in Tucson’s downtown district, was designed by Tucson architect Roy Place and built in 1929. The building has a Spanish Colonial and Moorish style, and a rather remarkable dome decorated with mosaic tiles. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

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John and Ruth Pew House, A Frank Lloyd Wright Design

November 22, 2009 by 6 Comments
On the Shore of Lake Mendota

On the Shore of Lake Mendota in Madison

The Pew House, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built in 1938-40, is seldom available for public tours, so it was with great enthusiasm that I explored this home, inside and outside, during the Wright and Like Tour held last June. Even dodging rain drops for most of the day didn’t dampen the spirit of the day. It was a good day for photographs – no bright mid-day sun – but the home is positioned neatly over a ravine on the shores of Lake Mendota, and taking any kind of photos requires gymnastics and compromises. To get a lake view, I hiked down the path towards the dock, but could never really take a photograph that truly captures the lines and beauty of this structure. There simply wasn’t enough space to get a photo of the entire home, even with my wide angle lens, and vegetation partly hides the part of the home I was able to shoot.

Hidden from View

Hidden from View, Lake Side

Not much of a view from the dock, or from Lake Mendota. The view from a boat would give you no clue that a Wright home was tucked into this hillside.

The home is a two-story Usonian design, unusual but delightfully compact and full of Wright’s built-ins. In one of the small bedrooms, tiny in size, the room worked well because everything was built into the room – bed, desk, storage. No photos were allowed of the interior of the house, but it is full of charm typical of Wright’s style.

I read a delightful story about an interview with Ruth Pew who voiced unhappiness with the home for the first two years she lived there. It seems she felt that Mr. Wright did not take her wants and needs into consideration when he designed the home, and she was nearly ready to put the home on the market. Instead, she decided she would “give the house a year without struggling with it.” And in that year, she discovered that the home had been built not for the woman she was, but for “the woman I could become.” Talk about self-discovery!

View from Deck into Living Room

View from Deck into Living Room

The Pew House is referred to as a “poor man’s Fallingwater,” because it was built straddling a ravine (instead of Fallingwater’s stream) and on a tight budget with salvaged materials. According to a docent on the tour, one of the windows in the living room had to be replaced because the faint logo of a local establishment became evident after the house was inhabited.

The Wright and Like Tours are held annually, in a different Midwest city, each June. 2010’s tour will be in Racine, Wisconsin. If you are a Wright fan, it’s a great opportunity to see a half dozen or so buildings designed by Wright and his contemporaries.

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