![the innkeepers lodge the innkeepers lodge](http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/04/08/73/23/innkeepers-lodge.jpg)
He also marketed lots in the Ingleside/Arcadia area for those looking to relocate to the Salt River Valley. Ralph was the genial “proprietor” or “operator,” often hosting Phoenix-area civic organizations for luncheons or dinners to market the inn to locals as well as seasonal visitors. As the area’s first luxury resort, and not a sanatorium, it included a nine-hole golf course, only the second course in the Arizona Territory at the time. Murphy and his son, Ralph, opened the Ingleside Club in 1909 near the Arizona Canal and Thomas Road. Although he succumbed to tuberculosis in 1923, the Graves Guest Ranch operated well into the 1950s. His shops (in Phoenix and at the Graves Guest Ranch) featured baskets, pottery, rugs and other items handmade by Native Americans and local artisans, as well as Western relics. Ed, who came to Arizona for his own health, also operated one of the area’s first craft/gift shops, the Graves Curio Store. Many health seekers stayed with the Graves family, easing their chronic symptoms with the ranch’s excellent meals of locally grown fresh produce, gentle outdoor exercise (croquet was popular) and exposure to the warm, dry winter climate. They eventually renamed it Graves (Guest) Ranch and added more tent cottages for their seasonal guests. Ν Oasis Villa became the property of Ed and Mary Graves, recent arrivals from Kentucky, sometime around 1905. This world is better for all such kindly, gentle and cheery souls.” “When on the edge of a choking, whirling sandstorm or Arizona downpour, the dweller in tents, new to the life, homesick, frightened and without the requisite ‘faculty’ to make the most and best of their surroundings, could look out and seeing the ‘mayor’ coming with hammer or spade ready to tighten the guy ropes or lead into other channels the too-familiar water course, the sunshine came with him and courage rose. Affectionately known as the “mayor of Scottsdale,” Howard was described by a former guest, Emma Paddock Telford of Brooklyn, who wrote a letter to the Arizona Republican following his death in February 1905. Most of their guests were either house seekers or health seekers, because tourism as we know it today was virtually nonexistent in the farm settlement of Scottsdale.
#The innkeepers lodge windows#
Oasis Villa, also known as Kenilworth Ranch, opened circa 1897, offering winter season accommodations in a boarding-house or tent-home (wood framed with canvas flaps for windows that could be raised for breeze or lowered to block sun or cool temperatures) setting. Ν New Yorkers Howard and Ida Underhill were the first to accept paying guests in their home on the northwest corner of what is now Scottsdale and Indian School roads. Get to know some of Scottsdale’s historic innkeepers: Season guests usually came for extended stays, had most (if not all) of their meals on-site and depended on the innkeeper for entertainment and transportation to outings. For example, no electricity until 1918, no air conditioning until the 1940s and no city services (paved streets, sewer system, fire protection, etc.) until after Scottsdale was incorporated in 1951. Scottsdale’s earliest hoteliers had challenges that seem unreal today. Despite the pandemic, today’s innkeepers carry on a tradition of welcoming visitors to Scottsdale and providing jobs for local residents started over 120 years ago.įrom the 1890s through the 1950s, visitors came to Scottsdale’s inns and guest ranches as much for the personality and hospitality of the innkeepers as they did for the properties’ location and amenities. Their employees and guests have had their lives upended as well. S cottsdale hoteliers rock! The men and women who run Scottsdale’s resorts and hotels have had to cope and adjust to the daily challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.