American aristocracy stayed at Castle Hot Springs first: the Vanderbilts, Pews, Rockefellers, and then the Wrigleys. Former President Teddy Roosevelt stayed here before dedicating the nearby reclamation dam that was named for him. His cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, also visited. A future president, John F....
During my first night at The Oasis at Death Valley, this city slicker was captivated by an eye-popping plethora of stars forming a hazy band of light across the black sky. This was outmatched the following morning when Mother Nature illuminated the panorama with a...
Pulling on a pair of borrowed rain boots, I hop into an ATV with Tim Soderquist, land manager of Spread Oaks Ranch. We drive off, splashing through the occasional puddle. It’s a foggy spring morning, a little moody out after last night’s thunderstorm, and there’s...
[caption id="attachment_18330" align="alignleft" width="344"] Triple Creek Ranch offers a mountain escape for guests along with traditional ranch adventures, such as horseback riding.[/caption] Tucked away among tall, lush pines in Western Montana, near the West Fork of the Bitterroot River and at the base of Trapper Peak,...
The Retreat and Links at Silvies Valley Ranch is located in a remote corner of Eastern Oregon. And one of its most revered employees, Bruce, is living his dream life. We instantly became friends when I arrived at the property’s seven-hole McVeigh Gauntlet Golf Course,...
AS ONE OF ONLY 23 UNESCO WORLD HERITAGE SITES in the U.S., New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon was occupied by the Pueblo people between 850 and 1250 A.D. Home to thousands, the community consisted of the largest collection of buildings in North America until the 1800s. The...
Blur a few details, and the Hassayampa Inn refocuses on another time: Calvin Coolidge is president; the improved Model A is replacing the iconic Model T on American roads; America is partying in speakeasies; and the Great Depression approaches stealthily, inexorably. During the “Roaring 20s,” architect...
WHEN THE HOTEL BOULDERADO OPENED on New Year’s Day of 1909, it hadn’t been long since there were gunfights in the streets outside. Boulder, Colorado, has changed since then, from an early-20th-century boomtown to a hip, 21st-century city that’s “nestled between the mountains and reality,” according...
In 1853, after an arduous journey from Independence, Missouri, to the territory now known as Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Sisters of Loretto founded the Academy of Our Lady of Light, a Catholic school that grew from small beginnings to cover a square-block near the...
In 1889, hanging the bell in the cupola on top of the hand-chiseled limestone school marked the completion of what the Park City town leaders thought might be the finest school in the State of Utah. Located one block up a steep hillside from Main...