La Posada, Colter’s Winslow Inn
Mary E. J. Colter (1869 – 1958) designed and decorated an 80-room hotel including its lounges, sunken garden, four dining areas, and other gracious public spaces. La Posada, located next to the depot between the railroad tracks and Route 66 in Winslow, Arizona, opened in 1930.
As with many of her other building designs, Colter strove to make the new building appear old. The local newspaper described the hotel as looking like “a real Spanish rancho,…typical of a home in new Mexico or Arizona between 125 and 150 years ago.” Colter designed the new hotel as if every imagined generation had made additions and other changes to it.
“Trackside view of the La Posada Hotel, Winslow, Arizona,” Clay Gilliland, 2018. (CC BY-SA 2.0)
In discussing La Posada’s architectural style, Colter told reporter Gertrude Henson, “We would not expect the interiors of any two homes or the architecture of any two houses of that day to be of the same design, nor exactly like those erected in Spain....Certain woods only are available here, and the workmen here would be farm laborers and not skilled mechanics, and so through the influence of material and labor, a type of home all his own was built by each owner. Men who had come to this section of America from Spain might come from any one of the many provinces and bring very different traditions and so would have as many different visions of the home they wished to build in America.”
Colter endeared herself to some Winslow residents by staying in local boarding houses while working on La Posada. In addition to designing the building, she also furnished and decorated it. Colter’s employer Fred Harvey sent her to Spain, Italy, and Greece, where she purchased antiques and decorative pieces to ship back to Winslow. There Colter worked with craftsmen in the company’s wood and iron shops to replicate some of her finds for use in the hotel.
After its opening on May 15, 1930, journalist Roger Birdseye wrote, “Finished at last is La Posada. To the city of Winslow belongs the distinction of sheltering the very latest and finest unit” of Santa Fe hotels operated by Fred Harvey. Over the next several decades La Posada accommodated many travelers, including Amelia Earhardt, Betty Grable, Carole Lombard, and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Changes in the travel industry led to the eventual closure of the hotel. Not finding a buyer for the building, in 1959 the Santa Fe sold off La Posada’s contents and moved in its division office. Vacated by the railway in 1989, the building was eventually purchased and, after a three-year, $12 million restoration effort, La Posada reopened to the public in 1997. Even without the furnishings and decorations selected by Colter, guests can still enjoy the accommodations and gain an understanding of why La Posada is believed to have been Colter’s favorite building of her design.
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Sources
The veranda, “La Posada, Winslow Arizona.” McFotoSFO, 2012. (CC BY 2.0)
“‘La Posada’ to Open Next Wednesday,” Winslow Daily Mail, May 6, 1930, pp. 1, 4.
Gertrude Henson, “‘La Posada,’ A Typical Spanish Rancho,” Supplement to the Winslow Daily Mail, June 2, 1930, p. 19.
Roger W. Birdseye, “A Typical Spanish Rancho: ‘La Posada, ’” Santa Fe Magazine, November 1930, pp. 21 – 25.
Janice Griffith, “La Posada: Built Upon the Red Earth,” Designer/Builder, April 1998, pp. 25 – 29.
La Posada, accessed October 29, 2022.