Make tracks for La Posada

Early on a bright, clear May morning, bracing and brilliant in a way I’ve always associated with the American West, I stepped down from Amtrak’s Southwest Chief at the trim adobe depot at Winslow, in northeastern Arizona. The rambling, Spanish-Colonial-Revival La Posada was adjacent.

I entered the original front door, on the railroad side of the building, and found a lobby, lounges, restaurant and guest rooms that were handsome and redolent of the past. And through the inn’s figurative front yard rolled a seemingly inexhaustible fleet of freight trains. I was in a train fan’s paradise.

That trip, taken a few years ago, was so enjoyable that I returned to La Posada with my wife, Laurel. This time, like almost all visitors, I came by car and entered the Arizona inn through what’s now the front door, from an intact section of the fragmented but still famous Route 66.

La Posada, it turned out, was better than ever, with new landscaping and more (and more-luxurious) guest rooms. Rooms run from $99 to $149 a night, though prices are scheduled to bump up in March.

For our February visit, I’d requested a room with a view -- of the trains. We were assigned No. 101, facing the tracks, with a door opening right on the South Arcade, so I could scramble outside with my camera at a moment’s notice.

Approached from either side, La Posada seems little changed by the nearly eight decades that have passed since it opened in 1930. Actually, that perception is deceiving, because La Posada (Spanish for “inn”) has changed plenty. But now it’s more or less back where it started.

La Posada is a destination in itself, and not just for train enthusiasts like me. Using the excellent booklet the inn provides, we explored its every nook and cranny and absorbed its history.

The inn’s back story involves one of the most successful business partnerships in America, sealed with a handshake in 1876 by Fred Harvey and the Santa Fe Railway.

Before dining cars were common, lunchrooms were an important -- and generally unpalatable -- aspect of rail travel. Harvey thought he could do better. The deal he struck with Santa Fe called for the railroad to construct and own lunchrooms, restaurants and hotels along the rail lines, and he would run them.

The railroad would also supply the coal, water, ice and transportation of furnishings, food, supplies and personnel -- most notably the Harvey Girls, waitresses recruited by the company through its offices in Chicago and Kansas City, Mo.

The first Harvey establishment was a lunchroom in the depot at Topeka, Kan., and right from the beginning he insisted on quality.

“Don’t cut the ham too thin,” Harvey was reported to have said on his deathbed in 1901. At the time, the company operated 15 hotels and 47 restaurants strung along the Santa Fe, and 30 dining cars.

Most of its finest properties would come later, under the leadership of Fred’s sons Byron and Ford. Among them were El Tovar at the Grand Canyon and, finally, La Posada.

The design of this landmark hotel was left to Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter, who from 1902 to 1949 created hotels, restaurants, shops and depots for the Harvey/Santa Fe team. Colter’s aesthetics were rooted in the indigenous cultures of the Southwest. Indian art and architecture informed many of her designs, including Hopi House and the Watchtower at the Grand Canyon’s South Rim. Colonial Spanish and Mexican aesthetics, a second dominant theme, characterize La Posada, Colter’s final and favorite building.

She envisioned La Posada as a late-18th century rancho owned by a wealthy Spanish colonial family and enlarged over the generations -- thus its purposely rambling design. Choosing 1869, the year she was born, to interpret, Colter filled her gracious, homey building with often rough-hewn, hand-crafted furniture and with the sort of art that a wealthy don might have collected in his travels.

Despite being a design triumph, La Posada probably never was a success financially, thanks to the Depression and the shift in travel habits from trains to cars and airplanes. In 1956, La Posada’s restaurant and lunchroom were closed. Plans to auction off the inn’s furnishings prompted Colter’s poignant valedictory, “There’s such a thing as living too long.” When she died in 1958, she no doubt assumed her beloved La Posada would be razed, and it did indeed came close in 1959.

So how is it that today’s traveler can walk into a lobby, cool and quiet, that looks and feels a century old?

“People often remark how lucky I was to find a building in such good shape,” said Allan Affeldt, La Posada’s current owner. “They have no idea [of]its condition when I bought it. In 1993 it was on Santa Fe’s disposal list,” Affeldt continued. “It was also on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s ‘Most Endangered Properties’ list. In the early ‘60s, using the building for office space, Santa Fe gutted most everything. They lowered ceilings with acoustical tile and covered the floors in vinyl.

“This was both a tragedy and a blessing.”

Had the structure not been modified and used in that way, it no doubt would have been torn down. In 1997, BNSF Railway (successor to the Santa Fe) transferred La Posada to Affeldt for $158,000, the value of the land, and wrote off the structure. Restoration costs were estimated at $12 million, though Affeldt may complete it for less by doing the work with his crews.

Affeldt and his wife (artist Tina Mion) moved in on April Fools’ Day in 1997, and restoration began immediately, proceeding by stages. In November of that year, the first five guest rooms opened; the inn will eventually offer 52, when 14 luxury suites (most with fireplaces, spas and sitting rooms) are completed, possibly this year.

“We’re becoming more of an upscale destination,” Affeldt said.

Soon after Laurel and I arrived we headed for the restaurant, called the Turquoise Room to honor the private dining room aboard Santa Fe’s flagship train, the Super Chief. Originally, most Harvey establishments had a lunchroom as well as a formal dining room, and La Posada was no exception. Actually, it had three. The third, a small private room, is now the cozy Martini Lounge, where we detoured on the way to the Turquoise Room.

We grabbed a window table so I could keep tabs on the rail traffic, including the westbound Southwest Chief, which passed through just before 8 p.m.

Turquoise Room chef-owner John Sharpe offers an excellent menu; with an emphasis on local produce and cheeses, it is best summed up as contemporary Southwestern. His wife, Patricia, is a partner in the enterprise, and her hand-painted place mats on Santa Fe and Harvey themes are a cheerful enhancement to the retro decor. Entrees range from $16 to $29.

Our server wore the black dress and white apron of the Harvey Girls. Those young women -- many from Midwestern farm families -- get credit for helping civilize the West. Prim but attractive, sans makeup and with hair in buns, these adventurous single women, ages 18 to 30, signed six- to 12-month contracts and agreed not to marry during the first term -- though many stayed and did marry, often railroaders or ranchers. Thanks to the MGM movie “The Harvey Girls” (starring Judy Garland), the memory of the Harvey company lingers. Our Harvey Girl brought us a splendid prime rib with horseradish cream and equally tasty pork carnitas -- crispy, spicy, served with black beans, papaya salsa and polenta.

We were back the next morning for the house breakfast specialty: baked-egg dishes, said to be inspired by Harvey himself. “The Boilerman” combined the eggs with roasted potatoes, peppers, onions, sausage and bacon, all smothered in melted cheddar and jalapeno jack cheeses.

Art is very much a part of the La Posada renaissance. Mion’s stained-glass mural is the key accent in the Turquoise Room, and her large, striking oils hang throughout the inn. Her studio is in the building, as are the family living quarters.

“We want this to feel like a big house,” Affeldt said. This accounts for the inn’s pet-friendly policy. “We have dogs. We’d feel hypocritical if we didn’t allow our guests to have them too.” (There is a $10 fee, and guests must sign a pet agreement.)

Only a small amount of the original La Posada furniture, scattered to the winds when auctioned in Albuquerque, has been repatriated. Mion’s brother, a master carpenter, has made many pieces, in an on-site workshop.

This echoes what Colter had done, collecting some antiques while having her own master furniture maker, E.V. Birt, create most in a workshop set up in the depot.

Many areas of the inn have been returned to their original appearance; others, though differently configured, look all of a piece. The ballroom is now a gracious lounge, where Laurel and I sat by the cheerful gas fireplace. The Cinderblock Court is an airy orangery that opens on a lovely, fully restored sunken garden.

Today the bedrooms at La Posada are named for famous guests who stayed at the inn. Humorist Will Rogers gets one, as do, among others, Jane Russell, Jackie Gleason, Lionel Barrymore, Frank Sinatra and Gene Autry. Ours honored Franklin D. Roosevelt.

There is, naturally, a room named for Mary , though the whole of the gloriously reborn La Posada is a monument to her genius.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Planning this trip

THE BEST WAY TO WINSLOW, ARIZ.

The train leaves from Los Angeles Union Station at 6:45 p.m. and arrives in Winslow at 6:09 a.m. Returning, it leaves Winslow at 7:50 p.m. and arrives in L.A. at 8:15 a.m. Sleeping-car space may be scarce, so you should book your trip well in advance. Round-trip fares begin at $154; (800) 872-7245, www.amtrak.com.

WHERE TO STAY

La Posada, 303 E. 2nd St., Winslow; (928) 289-4366, www.laposada.org. The inn has a 90% occupancy rate year-round and usually fills up from March through December, so, again, booking well in advance is advisable. Doubles from $99.

TO LEARN MORE

Arizona Office of Tourism, (866) 275-5816, www.arizonaguide.com.

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All aboard

See more photos of the landmark inn.