The Arizona Biltmore
Phoenix, Arizona

Sparks still smolder from the clash of architectural egos that created the Arizona Biltmore. "I have always given Albert's name as architect ... and always will," Frank Lloyd Wright wrote to McArthur's widow nearly 25 years after the fact. "But I know better and so should you." Albert Chase McArthur, enlisted by his brothers to design their hotel, called on his former teacher for help. Wright spent four months in Arizona working on The Biltmore. That much we know; how much Wright helped is still hotly contested. McArthur’s relatives say they did ask Wright for a bit of help when he was down on his luck—and he was—but that was all.

Never mind, the Arizona Biltmore is home to Wright’s spirit, Wright myths and some bona fide Wright. Desert lines, long and low, dominate the design. A stately core, not unlike a regal saguaro cactus, rises from the center. This Wrightian façade has a Wright-like entrance—it’s obscured in the same way desert critters conceal the openings of their dens. At the Biltmore, however, two valets snap to and on the same beat open both of the car’s front doors. You know, then, you have arrived.

Three Wright sprites, lean and deco, bow their heads in quiet greetings, belying their treacherous trip to the Biltmore. Designed by Wright for Chicago’s Midway Gardens, the sprites were thought to be lying at the bottom of Lake Michigan with the rest of the rubble from the Gardens’ 1923 demolition. They cropped up after World War II in the field of a Wisconsin farmer. Several restorations and refuges later, Mrs. Wright donated these three greeters plus five others to The Biltmore.

Follow the not-quite-narrow passageway to the island of Biltmore blocks, bromeliads and waterfalls—a celebration of the natural elements Wright wove into all his designs. Decorative cast concrete blocks are a Wright invention. On the surface of the Biltmore’s blocks is a stylized rendering of palm bark. In a myriad of variations—quartered and halved, turned and inverted—the blocks embellish the Biltmore’s interior and exterior walls.

Around the island, the bold colors of a stained glass mural burst into view. Definitely Wright, it also was a gift from his widow. Befitting Wright’s Biltmore legacy, the mural was accidentally hung upside down and remains so—it was too fragile to turn. Lean sideways to make out the cactus motif.

Emerge now into the two-storied, two-hundred-foot-long lobby. Opaque-glass lights gently reflect the gold-leaved ceiling like a torch-lit castle. A second-story promenade covers intimate foyers. The Squaw Peak Bar is cut adrift from the lobby’s hubbub by a block basin of falling water. The Biltmore’s reigning restaurant, rightly called Wright’s, graces the lobby’s terminus where two-storied windows frame perfectly a tree of life.

At the other terminus is the near circular and near perfect Aztec Room. Biltmore blocks create coves of angular windows. Incised copper beams much like flying buttresses raise high the gold-leaved and sky-lighted ceiling. Here, in Hollywood’s heyday, the stars sang, sipped cocktails and gazed at themselves as their motion pictures’ screened.

The Biltmore’s gardens capture hundreds of vignettes as the light, water, palms and sculptures interact with the architecture and the mountains. The building’s blocks capture the high-noon sun and convert portions of it to geometric shade. When the sun is low and the shadow long, you can see how the palms are mirrored in the blocks. At night, a thousand and one lights glimmer off surfaces stylized and natural, waters moving and still. It is both desert relief and relief from the desert.

You can even spend one night or twelve. The Biltmore’s 730 rooms range from smallish, elegant rooms in the main building to voluminous, many-roomed suites. Rooms are in restored deco cottages—where the kids and nannies were banished in the early days—and in villas surrounding the Biltmore’s oldest pool, The Catalina Pool, tiled in peacock blue, apple green and canary yellow which was favored by Marilyn Monroe.

I spent my Biltmore nights at the deep end of Marilyn’s pool. The first night, I tip-toed out of my bedroom, past its vast bath and down a few steps to the great room areas for lounging, dining and cooking. Mission style furniture made of oak and filled with down and a Biltmore block fireplace looked out onto a leafy patio. The other bedroom and its bath seemed remote. Once outside, I slid into the ultramarine glow of the warm pool. Except for the crickets—and Marilyn’s ghost—I swam alone under a slightly chilly, stunningly-starry Arizona sky.

Then, aspiring then to look like the water goddess on the spa’s brochure, I surrendered to the Biltmore’s own cactus flower wrap with all natural—and mostly eatable—components. Shasta, my pretty and pretty wonderful spa specialist, started with a rubdown of oatmeal, cornmeal and wheat germ grains which got rid of a layer or two of the old me. She then spread what was left of me with a nourishing and hydrating prickly pear cactus juice and honey syrup. Honey, this time with yogurt, vanilla and milk solids cleaned my face. It was then splashed with a witch hazel brew loaded with lemon, orange and grapefruit zests and a dissolved vitamin C tablet for good measure. Next, Shasta massaged my face with borage-grapeseed-jojoba-lemon-lavender oil and followed-up with an apricot mask and pina colada lip gloss. The pièce de résistance was a smashing body massage using an oil of jojoba, sesame and avocado laced with lime-tangerine-grapefruit zest. Afterwards, I was deliciously relaxed, tastily revitalized and hungry.

Oh, that it had been time for tea. I’d have consumed a few dainty tea sandwiches and a scone dripping with Devonshire cream. Then, I’d have been encouraged to select at least one of the Chocolate Tea’s dozen desserts. Both the Chocolate Tiramisu and the White Chocolate Passion Fruit Gâteau sounded as good as my massage.

It was, however, lunchtime so I headed for the Cabana Club and it did not disappoint. Settled under a large sun umbrella, I watched the people in the cabanas, chaises and swim-up bar of Paradise Pool. A woman, who did not look at all like Imelda, was telling her cell phone that she had brought eight pairs of shoes but forgotten her tennies. Busy business types downed Biltmore Burgers and beer. The sun worshippers reminded me of my aspirations to be a water nymph, so I ordered a Biltmore Breeze—raspberry iced tea and lemonade and the Oriental Chicken Salad, a gourmet but not gluttonous pleasure.

Paradise Pool is a veritable ode to art deco—and to Frank Lloyd Wright. A fantastic water slide pours out of an art deco pavilion into the free form pool. There is an eddy off to the side for hot soaks. Long-legged palms carry shiny-fronded umbrellas around its shores.

A little of the Biltmore’s water goddess must have seeped into me, because that night I was drawn back to this pool. Alone and goddess-like, I stroked through its silver waters, catching little views of paradise each time I raised my head.

By Kate Crawford         September  2002

LINKS WITH ATTITUDE

Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West was Wright's western workshop, home and School of Architecture. It's still a school and the headquarters of the Wright Foundation. It has interesting tours and is not far from The Biltmore.  

The chewing gum Wrigley's owned The Biltmore for its first several decades, The Wrigley Mansion is nearby and worth a visit.

Arizona Central is the online edition of the Phoenix Sun, you can find out
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