Grand Canyon Inn & National Park Headquarters, Camper's Store and Pub, Santa Fe River, North Rim, intersection of Canyon & Cerro Gordo Roads, Grand Canyon

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS AZ-144-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Grand Canyon Inn is significant as part of the original development by the Utah Parks Company on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. The inn is an example of inexpensive "rustic" architecture intended, without highly stylized or sophisticated design or expensive materials, to replace the original tent camp with a more substantial, yet still low cost tourist facility. It was designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood. Prepared By: John P. White

Source document Quoted word for word from HABS AZ-144-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Project prepared in under the direction of the National Park Service, Western Region, Marjorie Baer, historian. The team comprised project supervisor John P. White (Associate Professor of Architecture, Texas Tech University), architects Linda Kay Heinrich and Paula Beth Miller (Virginia Tech), and student architect Deborah Rehn Hurst (Washington University, St. Louis). Richard Frear was photographer. Grand Canyon Inn & National Park Headquarters Camper's Store and Pub (Page 2)

Historical Information

Grand Canyon Inn was constructed in as the main building of the original development by the Utah Parks Company on the North Rim of Grand Canyon. The inn, designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood, is an example of inexpensive "rustic" architecture without highly stylized or sophisticated design or expensive materials. It offered a lower priced tourist accommodation than the more elegant Grand Canyon Lodge, and also provided food service for tourists using the development's frame and log cabins, or the nearby campground. In later years, the Inn building was converted into a cafeteria, and still later served as a store and recreation room without food service. II. ARCHITECTURAL INFORMATION A. General Statement: 1.

Architectural Merit and Interest: The "rustic" designed building with its vertical peeled logs serve as a visual focus in harmony with the surrounding pine forest and consequently are the primary contributors to the structure's rustic character. 2. Condition of Fabric: Good B. Description of Exterior: 1. Overall dimensions: This seven-bay, one story with basement structure is rectangular, approximately forty-two feet by seventy-three feet with a twenty-two feet by thirty feet extension on the rear and a twelve feet by twelve feet extension on the east. 2. Foundation: Native Kaibab limestone with stone piers. Two concrete columns in basement. 3. Wall construction, finish, color: Exposed wooden frame with horizontal wooden boards, painted dark brown. Diagonal bracing on frames. 4.

Structural system, framing: Wooden frame, with very large peeled log columns and Howe trusses, with knee braces. 5. Porches, stoops, bulkheads, etc: There is a concrete deck across the south fac;ade, on the east end, which has seven concrete steps leading up to it on its west end. A concrete areaway on the south side of the extension leads into the basement. The concrete wall has an iron pipe rail extending around it and Grand Canyon Inn & National Park Headquarters Camper's Store and Pub (Page 3) there are eight concrete steps leading to the basement. There is an iron handrail o the wall along the steps. There are two lean-to structures on the west side of the extension, which house mechanical equipment. 6.

Chimneys: There is a large, outside end stone chimney in the center of the extension on the rear. 7. Openings: a. Doorways and doors: The main entrance to the store is recessed, with a small concrete porch slab. The double doorway has eight light French doors with wooden framed screen doors. The main entrance to the pub is on the north fa9ade, right side and has a wooden framed door with full length glass panel. It has a wooden sill and metal threshold. A doorway at the bottom of the areaway leads into the basement, which has a wooden batten door. There is a doorway leading from the dock into the kitchen. The wooden panel door has a four-light glass panel at the top and a metal threshold.

At the extension on the east side of the main building there is a doorway on the north and east leading into women's and men's toilets, respectively. The wooden doors have vertical plank panels. b. Windows and shutters: Wooden clerestory windows have six-light hopper sashes. Display windows in the store and pub have wooden fixed sashes. Other wooden windows have six-over-six, double-hung sashes. There is a large wooden louver window in each gable end. 8. Roof: a. Shapes, covering: The intersecting gable roofs are covered with wooden shingles, painted green. There is a shed roof over the enclosed porch on the north. b. Cornice, eaves: Open eaves, with log brackets supporting eaves on gable ends. There is a metal gutter on parts of the roof. c.

Dormers, cupolas, towers: There is a wooden cupola in the center of the south extension wing, with gable roof, that vents the kitchen below. C. Description of Interior: I . Floor plan: a. Basement: There is a basement under the south extension wing that has a concrete floor, stone walls and houses the steam boiler and storage rooms. Grand Canyon Inn & National Park Headquarters Camper's Store and Pub (Page 4) It is entered from the exterior through the areaway. There are two concrete columns near the center. b. First Floor: Entry to the campers' store is on the north fa9ade, through a recessed entry. The large space has an alcove, formerly a porch, which has three large display windows on the north wall. There are five large log columns on each side of the main store.

Between each column, on the north wall, there is a clerestory window, and one clerestory on the south. In an alcove on the east side of the main space there are three high windows. There are two doorways on the south wall that lead into the former kitchen, which is now a store room. The main entrance to the pub is on the north fa9ade. It opens directly into the large pub space. There are two large columns in the center of the space and engaged columns at the walls. On the west wall there is a large fixed window in the center, with a double window and transom on either side of the fixed window. There are two large fixed windows on the north wall. Between two engaged columns on the north wall, there are two clerestory windows.

There are two engaged columns on the south wall and one and one-half engaged columns on both the east and west walls. In an extension wing on the east side, there are two toilets, each with an outside entry. 2. Flooring: Wooden floors are covered with sheet vinyl. Floors in the toilets are concrete. 3. Walls and ceiling finish: Horizontal wooden planks on walls and exposed trusses and wooden decking in the store and pub. The west wall of the store is gypsum board, painted, and the east wall of the has simulated wooden paneling. The kitchen has fiber board walls and ceilings, painted white. The toilets have gypsum board walls and ceilings, enameled white. Toilets have wooden beaded-panel toilet partitions. 4. Doorways and doors: Wooden panel doors. 5. Mechanical equipment: a.

Heating: Oil-fired steam boiler with radiators. b. Plumbing: Modem plumbing features. c. Lighting: Fluorescent lighting in the store and kitchen. In the pub there are four large ring chandeliers with twenty projecting flower design bases and horizontal projecting light bulbs. There are two smaller fixtures, similar, but with only twelve bulbs. Each is suspended by four metal rods angled from the center at the ceiling outward to the edge of the fixtures. All bulbs have been removed and Grand Canyon Inn & National Park Headquarters Camper's Store and Pub (Page 5) modem fluorescent fixtures have been attached to the underneath side. D. Site 1. General setting and orientation: The building sits among ponderosa pine, fir and aspen trees at the end of the roadway leading into the area.

It faces northeast. There is an asphalt sidewalk along the front with a stone curbing. To the west there are log cabins, and to the northwest there are exposed frame cabins. The campground is on the east and south sides of the building. It sits above the head of, but screened by the forest from view of, Transept Canyon. Toward the east is a parking lot and amphitheatre. Down the road and on the left, approximately one quarter mile, is the shower and laundry building and service station.