In a meadow at the base of the Royal Arches in Yosemite National Park sits a landmark lodge that’s hosted the likes of John F. Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. The iconic Ahwahnee Hotel is located at the east end...
The Edwards Plateau at the heart of Texas Hill Country forms the southern tip of the Great Plains. The pale rock underneath the earth here is mostly Cretaceous limestone, and enormous granite domes like Enchanted Rock just outside Fredericksburg give uncommon shape to the land....
One minute you can pretend to be a fictional Hopalong Cassidy on horseback trailblazing across terrain straight out of a Hollywood Western, and the next, you can trade in your spurs for spikes to reenact Roy “Tin Cup” McAvoy traversing fairways in a golf cart....
Since its opening in 1926, the InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel has galvanized its position as a San Francisco landmark. Located atop the city’s celebrated Nob Hill neighborhood, the hotel stands in the footprint of a grand Gothic-style mansion built by Mark Hopkins, one of the...
If the walls of room 222 at the Strater Hotel in Durango, Colorado, could talk, overnight guests might hear tales of writer Louis L’Amour, who spent many days there, inspired by the gaiety and music emanating from the saloon directly beneath his room, fixated on...
Overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, approached by an allée of tall palm trees, the Grand Galvez stands as it has for more than a century. Newly renovated, the hotel exceeds her original grandeur, incorporating the elegance of the Gilded Age, enlivened with the charisma of...
When The Sea Ranch Lodge, overlooking the ocean in northern Sonoma County, reopened last October after a three-year-long renovation, the occasion represented not merely the return of a Western landmark. It also served as a stirring recommitment to a California enclave like none other. Stretching...
San Antonio, Texas, is replete with reminders of its Spanish history: Colonial Revival architecture, flower-decked balconies overlooking the San Antonio River, and Spanish street names. Amid this homage stands a structural tribute to the lesser-known German heritage that also helped shape this bustling city —...
When you’re a trustee of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, you know a thing or two about art. So when Philip Maritz put together his plan for The Ameswell Hotel in Mountain View, California, his vision to infuse contemporary paintings, sculptures, and photographs into...
In one of America’s most spectacular holiday displays, the Mission Inn presents its annual Festival of Lights for six weeks starting the day after Thanksgiving. More than four million electric bulbs decorate the square-block property in an extravaganza that includes upwards of 400 animated figures,...