Sustainable Design at Mary Colter’s Bright Angel Lodge

Mary Colter incorporated methods that today are considered sustainable in the design and construction of the Bright Angel Lodge and Cabins at the Grand Canyon in 1935. These methods include minimizing site disruption, using locally extracted materials, repurposing waste materials, preserving and reusing existing structures, and tying the sanitary plumbing into a water reclamation system. These strategies were employed for aesthetic or practical rather than environmental reasons.

Colter designed the Bright Angel Lodge and Cabins in the Grand Canyon Village as an informal, rustic village. The main lodge included the lobby, shops, restaurant, kitchen, and offices. The lodge was connected by covered walkways to seven guesthouses. There were also fifteen free-standing cabins of one to four units each and several small utility buildings. Construction began in 1935 with one contractor for the main lodge building and another for the cabins and other smaller structures.

The Grand Canyon Village site, although near the train depot, was remote; reducing the amount of materials transported saved money. The design called for the exposed stone used on the lodge and guest house to be weathered rock gathered near the building site. Although this choice was likely made for aesthetic reasons—the National Park Service required that buildings harmonize with their surroundings, and Colter liked lending the impression of age to her projects—it also reduced the environmental and monetary costs of quarrying and transporting stone.

Repurposing waste materials also reduces the cost and impact of construction materials. “Slabs” are the rounded edges of logs trimmed off logs at the saw mill to square them up. They are typically an inch or inch-and-a-half thick. At Bright Angel, these slabs were nailed to wood-framed walls with caulk joints between them, giving the impression that the walls are made from logs. More than 6,000 square feet of native pine slabs were installed at the lodge building alone. Using slabs instead of logs for this exterior finish significantly reduced the amount of material needed.

Porch roof overhang at Bright Angel Lodge entrance, c. 1936. NPS photo (Grand Canyon Museum Collection GRCA 09683)

Although saving energy was not a significant consideration owing to low energy costs, designing for comfort was. For example, Colter designed the roofs over the south-facing lobby and coffee shop with deep overhangs, providing shade and reducing solar heat gain indoors in the summer months. The covered walkways between buildings shaded the buildings as well as pedestrians.

Daylight reduced the demand for artificial light, and in the lodge’s shop and kitchen, operable skylights increased daylight and natural ventilation. The 25-room guest house had a light-well at its center and a skylight to provide natural light. In the cabins, every exterior wall had windows or doors, creating cross-ventilation and providing daylighting.

 Although carried out for practical or aesthetic rather than environmental goals, these measures foreshadowed approaches employed in the design and construction of today’s sustainable buildings.

For more on sustainable design and construction at Bright Angel Lodge and Cabins, read last month’s post about sustainable site strategies. Next month, I’ll write about preserving and reusing existing buildings there.

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Sources

 “140,000 Visit Grand Canyon In 1934; $500,000 to be Spent On New Bright Angel Lodge,” Santa Fe New Mexican, Sept. 20, 1934, p. 6.

Grand Canyon Museum Collection, GRCA 26548 Folders 19 and 20:

• “Specifications for Lodge”

• “Specifications for Concrete – Slab and Log Additions and Alterations to the Bucky O’Neill Cabin” 

• “Specifications for Four-Room Frame Cabins”

• “Specifications for Concrete, Masonry & Log Guest House of 25 Rooms for the A. T. & S. F. Ry. Co. Coast Lines”

• R. S. Belcher letter to Mr. M. J. Collins, General Purchasing Agent, May 17, 1934.

Kansas Historical Society, Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company Records. ATSF Maps and Plans: MCA D19 F168, floor plans of Bright Angel Lodge, 1934-36.

Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS No. AZ-136, ‘Bright Angel Lodge,’ Washington, DC: National Park Service, 1982.

Reeder, Linda, “Accidental Environmentalists: Building Construction on the Rim, 1931 – 1936.” (Cambridge, UK: Sixth Annual Conference of the Construction History Society, April 2019).

Vint, Thomas C. “Landscape Development in Our Western Parks.” The Western Architect, June 1930: 99-101.