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| Reborn La Posada Hotel with the first rate Turquoise Restaurant in Winslow, AZ |
Editor’s note: This is part of an occasional series written in a coffee
centric stream of consciousness about coffee bars we’ve visited and enjoyed. We stopped by for a cup of coffee and
discovered a wonderful oasis of architecture, art, Southwest history,
architectural restoration, human dedication and respect.
A TRUE OASIS--A few steps south of
La Posada Hotel in Winslow AZ are the Burlington Northern/Santa Fe Railroad tracks. In fact, the lobby of this classic hotel is now
the waiting room for two AMTRAK passenger trains that stop for passengers once
in the morning and once at night. Mary Jane Colter, the chief architect for the Fred Harvey Company, designed La
Posada in a deco/Spanish Revival style in the late 1920s.
Opened
in 1930, La Posada was the last of the Santa Fe Railroad Co’s string of Fred
Harvey hotels and restaurants. It was
Fred Harvey, who brought style and elegance to transportation hospitality.
For
the next 30 years, the town of Winslow prospered as a train hub for Santa Fe
Railroad and because the Howard Hughes built airport (he owned TWA) was a
refueling stop for those coast to coast Constellation flights. La Posada to this day remains as a must see
establishment along route Highway 66.
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| La Posada Hotel's Turquoise Room Restaurant operated by Chef John Sharpe and Patricia Sharpe |
Today,
sitting in the window of La Posada’s Turquoise Restaurant you can see train
buffs and/or hotel guests sitting on tree-lined stucco walls, chairs or garden
swings watching the cross-country freight trains roll by seemingly every five
minutes. If you think the humble
freight train is going to soon be extinct—think again, the freight trains are
often 100 double deck cars long.
Obviously,
slow to get to the coffee story, but we had to praise the La Posada for its
architectural history, stylish rebirth and for the best Southwestern cuisine we
tasted between Kansas City and San Diego.
Chef John Sharpe was on the ground floor of the late 1990s remodeling of
La Posada (more on the trio who saved the hotel later in this blog post) and he
opened the Turquoise Room in 2000.
It
is a superb dinner house. The menu is
shaped for all hours of the day and it sings.
Harkening to its early Fred Harvey days our waitress wore a classic Fred
Harvey Girl apron uniform.
If
you are driving Interstate 40 and bypass Winslow and the La Posada you’ve
cheated yourself.
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| Latter day Harvey Girl service |
We
ended up staying three hours for lunch.
And, a month later after our visit, we could easily be convinced to
train it back to Winslow to spend a week at the La Posada for relaxation, train
watching and the best food in Arizona.
Of
course, we asked our Turquoise Room Restaurant waitress what brand of coffee we
were drinking.
Her
answer—Late For the Train—is sold in bulk at the restaurant but not in the
hotel lobby gift store. We purchased a
full pound.
Also,
did a bit of research on Late For the Train Coffee Co., and learned it has been
in operation in a hole in the wall storefront in Flagstaff since 1993. They
still operate out of 107 N. San Francisco Street but have since added a new
roaster and two new outlets elsewhere.
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| Since 1993, the Late for the Train Coffee operation has been based in Flagstaff, AZ. Above is the main shop on San Francisco Street, in the historic downtown area. |
Late
for the Train roasts a special Turquoise Room house blend using its Diedrich
CR-50 roaster. The LFTT blend is only
available in the Turquoise Room and not in the La Posada gift store. That tip came from our excellent waitress in
the Harvey Girl uniform that she says “is really cool to wear. I feel like a
part of history.
REBIRTH OF THE LA
POSADA HOTEL.
The
hero of this story is Allan Affeldt (with help from restoration partners Tina
Mion and Daniel Lutzick), who saved the La Posada from possible demolition
after the Sante Fe Railroad Co., decided to sell the property.
To
back up a bit in history, we pointed out earlier that the 60-room La Posada
enjoyed a heyday until the 1950s. From
mid-century the property was surplus space for the railroad and was used as
Santa Fe Railway Division offices beginning in the 1960s. Through the early 90s, the interior of the La
Posada was corporate.
Allen
Affeldt fell in love with the old dowager of a hotel when he first visited
Winslow in 1994. Soon, with the
encouragement of local preservationists and others, he began a three year
journey of negotiations with the railroad to overcome legal, environmental and
financial hurdles.
Life
partners Affeldt and Mion as La Posada Hotel LLC took on the $12 million
project. Lutzick is the third partner
and hotel GM. They moved in April Fools
Day of 1997 and have been there ever since.
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| Tina Mion and Allan Affeldt |
The
hotel remains an ongoing restoration project.
Big backers have been the Arizona Heritage Fund, Arizona Department of
Transportation, private foundations and loyal fans of the La Posada, including
a wide range of the arts communities in the region. The partners are still accepting restoration
donations from the public.
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| Patricia and John Sharpe |
The
interiors of the hotel and restaurant have been enhanced dramatically.
The
menus feature retro dishes from the days when Fred Harvey ran the show. Chef Sharpe’s contemporary Southwestern
cuisine is first rate by all standards.
And,
they serve a delicious cup of Late for the Train brand of coffee.
MORE IMAGES:
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|
Dan Lutzick, La
Posada partner/GM, sculptor/artist and owner of Winslow’s Snowdrift Art Space
gallery.
LA POSADA ARCHITECT
By Despina
Stratigakos, Ph.D., a Beverly Willis Achitecture Foundation Trustee--Mary Jane Colter, raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, brought a great
sensitivity for history and landscape to the lodges and hotels she designed in
the American Southwest for the Santa Fe Railway and the Fred Harvey Company.
From 1905 to the mid-1930s, Colter
designed a series of buildings at the Grand Canyon whose bold designs,
archaeological references, and use of local materials fired tourists’
imaginations and remain immensely popular sites. She is credited with inspiring
the style known as National Park Service Rustic, nicknamed Parkitecture,
developed by the National Park Service in an effort to blend visitor facilities
with their natural and historic surroundings.
Others claim Colter’s fusion of
cultural influences set the standard for Southwestern design. In Winslow,
Arizona she designed La Posada in 1929.
Harbinger to La Posada in Gallup, New Mexico was Colter’s 1923 railway
hotel, El Navajo, daringly combined modernist, Spanish, and Native American
architectural elements and featured Navajo sand paintings in the lobby. The
hotel was demolished in 1957, shortly before the architect’s death, to widen
Route 66.
The Lookout
Studio at Grand Canyon National Park by Mary Colter.
Photo Credit: NPS photo by
Michael Quinn
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NEXT WEEK: 10/4 Arbuckle's Coffee at Hubbell's Trading Post, Ganado, AZ
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