Fred Harvey Architect Mary Colter

That Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter (usually known as just Mary Colter) became the main architect and interior designer of Fred Harvey hotels across New Mexico and Arizona is one of the fascinating coincidences of history. Raised in the Midwest, Colter traveled to San Francisco to attend the California School of Design where her work in art and retail display was noticed by a cashier at a Fred Harvey location there. The cashier recommended her to Fred Harvey personnel, and in 1902 Colter was hired on a contract to design the interior of Fred Harvey's Indian Building at the Alvarado Hotel in Albuquerque. The rest as they say... is history!

Fred Harvey hired Mary Colter permanently as the company's architect and put her to work designing interiors of Harvey Hotels, as well as designing hotels themselves. Heading in order from east to west we start with Colter's design of the interior of El Ortiz Hotel in Lamy, New Mexico in 1910. She furnished the lounge with Navajo rugs and displays of Pueblo pottery, much like she had done in the Indian Building. In Santa Fe, Colter helped architect John Gaw Meem design the expansion of La Fonda Hotel from 1926 to 1930, and she decorated the interior of the hotel rooms. In Gallup, Colter designed the interior of El Navajo Hotel, enlisting Fred Kabotie to paint interpretations of Navajo sand paintings on the walls. At the Painted Desert Inn in Arizona, she again used Fred Kabotie to paint native decorations on the interior walls. At Winslow, Colter created her masterpiece- La Posada Hotel, designed in the fashion of a Mexican hacienda. Then it was on to the Grand Canyon for more of her Southwest inspired work. 

At the Grand Canyon Mary Colter went wild. Inspired by her travels across the Southwest and all the Native arts and crafts she had seen, she designed buildings, structures, hotels, and a grand tower to overlook it all. In 1905 her Hopi House opened right next to El Tovar Hotel on the canyon rim. Inside it was a sales room for Fred Harvey's native arts gathered by Harvey employee Herman Schweizer. Heading west along the rim from El Tovar in 1914, Colter designed two rest stops for the Detourists- Lookout Studio and Hermit's Rest. In 1922 she designed Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, with stone cabins to serve as overnight accommodations for weary hikers and mule riders. At the eastern end of the Grand Canyon's south rim, Colter constructed the Desert View Watchtower in 1932, allowing visitors to climb up four flights of stairs in the tower to get 360-degree views of the Canyon. And, in 1935, she designed Bright Angel Lodge, just west of El Tovar Hotel, providing a less expensive night's lodging than the hotel. One historian noted that "the fact that all of Colter's Grand Canyon buildings still stand and serve historic functions, despite the changing cultural landscape of the past century, is testament to the high esteem others have held for her work."