I love natural spaces and I love sites that show off human history, and I especially love when the two intersect as they do so spectacularly at the Painted Desert Inn in Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona:
It’s always fascinating to me what’s allowed to stay: which buildings and monuments and artifacts get preserved vs. which are left to fall to ruin. The Painted Desert Inn seems like it should have been a candidate for the latter category. It was built nearly a hundred years ago and started life as a small inn, an isolated outpost where guests could enjoy the amazing surrounding landscape. But it was built on a seam of bentonite clay, which swells and shrinks with changes in the moisture level, and this has caused foundation problems and other structural headaches with the building since the beginning.
The CCC and architect Lyle Bennett gave the inn a Pueblo Revival Style Makeover in the 30’s, and it enjoyed a new life providing services to Route 66 travelers. The Fred Harvey Company took over in the late 40s and designer and architect Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter created a new color scheme and added windows designed to take advantage of the amazing views.
Structural problems eventually forced the Fred Harvey Company to close the inn in the early 60’s and the debate about whether to preserve the inn or tear it down began. Demolition was actually scheduled in 1975, but a public campaign put the brakes on that, and the inn is now a National Historic Landmark. Frankly, the National Park Service seems a little lukewarm about their responsibility to preserve the inn indefinitely. On their webpage about the inn’s history, they say, “Although its history is intriguing, the building is difficult to maintain. Cracks form in many of the walls. Window and door frames swell and skew. Water damage and cracks threaten the beautiful Kabotie murals. The seam of bentonite clay beneath the foundation of the inn continues to cause structural problems.”
Personally, I think the inn is absolutely lovely and that the history is more than intriguing, and I’m very glad it gets to stick around. But I’m not the one who has to deal with the structural issues. Note to self: don’t ever build a house on a seam of bentonite clay.
Petrified Forest National Park was our stop after the Grand Canyon on our cross-country road trip last summer. We didn’t have time to stop overnight, so we drove through in one afternoon. You can read about the park in more detail over on the travel blog.
The Painted Desert Inn was one of the last things we saw in Petrified Forest. Sadly, we weren’t there at the right time to take a ranger led tour AND we got there just after the basement ice cream parlor closed. But we did have a great time exploring on our own. The inn is preserved today to look like it did in its 1950s glory days and most everything in there is original.
We went in through the kitchen. There are signs to tell you about what you’re seeing and a ranger on hand to answer questions.
I loved everything about this room, from the colors, to the light, to the original furnishings, to the ceiling beams, to the murals:
Not a bad view:
Here’s the basement, where you can buy ice cream if you get there early enough.
More art!
And here’s a petroglyph that was found nearby:
It doesn’t take long to tour, but definitely make sure you stop here if you’re ever in Petrified Forest National Park (which you should be, because the whole park is really lovely).
