Wilhelms

Last week I stayed at the Grand Canyon Hotel in Williams, Arizona.  Built in 1891, it is allegedly the oldest functioning hotel in Arizona.  It was the only place I could find with a room to let, and I am so glad.  I love it.  John Muir stayed there many times; I wonder if he ever stayed in my room?

As I have said, I prefer historic buildings to be a little threadbare, a little dirty, a little unrenovated.  I have a very Grey Gardens aesthetic, minus the cat pee.  This place ran through the 1970s, went out of business, and sat empty for almost 40 years (a "home for pigeons," they said) before the current management bought and "renovated" it.  By renovated, they mean they fixed the sewer, water lines, some electricity, and painted.  The wood floors are still 1891, almost completely worn of finish.  They didn't refinish the floors!  They are so creaky.  The banister is chipped and worn and you can see at least 4 different paint colors on it.  The rooms are furnished with all period furniture, including antique books on the bedside for casual perusal (I did, and was offended!).

I wrote this at the time and never posted it:

I am sitting on a small, squeaky brass bed, looking at a primitive walnut dresser/vanity on which is a 19th century vanity kit complete with hair-receiver and boot button hook!  A BUTTON HOOK.  The hotel is filled with early photographic portraits, some of which have faded so much that they may not be visible in another 25 years.  Needless to say, I am much pleased.  If my next door neighbor didn't have tuberculosis (not Doc Holliday or Val Kilmer so fuck them), this would be perfect.

People hate old portraits of babies and kids.  Why?  Because they look like killer dolls?  I'm over it.

Copyright: the twenties

The only time that "bathroom down the hall" thing sucks is when you're walking through this darkened area at 4 am with your hands out in front of you thinking, now is seriously not the time for any paranormal shit, plz/thx.

When I was a child, I read a weird horror story called "The Newel Post" about a newel post that anthropomorphized at night and, I don't remember, scared people.  Every time I see any class of a banister post, I think of the story.

Peeling mirrors, I prefer them

*Button hooks were necessary in Victoriana when super tight, heavily buttoned garments were en vogue.  A woman's boot could have up to 24 tiny buttons to fasten.  The buttons were small and the material was quite stiff, so the slender hook was used to reach into the button hole, grab that button, and pull it through.  Same with gloves and some men's items.  They must be a collector favorite, because I never see them around anywhere.

Rehab Addict

Rehab Addict is my new favorite tv show.

This woman flips historic homes in Minneapolis, but before she puts them on the market, she renovates them to something resembling their original condition.  That is, she tears out all of the ugly things that bad, bad people have done to the houses through the decades, and replaces it with as many period-correct elements as she can. 

Why do people buy historic buildings and mutilate them into modern looking buildings?  If you want something new, get something new (you fucking son of a bitch moron jagweed asshole)!  Leave the old ones alone.  When I was house shopping, I hated walking into a cute 1930s bungalow only to find that it had been gutted and renovated in approximately 1987.  NOT ACCEPTABLE.  Maybe I'm weird, though.  As I have detailed at some point, I grew up in a 1950 time capsule.

Our house was the Phoenix winter home of a mildly eccentric old man who had kept the house in such pristine condition that my dad didn't see fit to change much but the carpet and the strangely cushioned kitchen tile.  All of the furniture and incidental items of the house conveyed, and my dad kept it all.  I was too young then to realize that this was a little weird.  The prior owner had had a daughter (by then middle aged), and one of the bedrooms of the house was still painted pink, with a little pink velvet vanity chair, a ceramic piggy bank in the shape of a cocker spaniel, and a 1950s jewelry box.  These became my things, and I still have the dog.  I still have their pink Pyrex set, '50s egg cooker, monogrammed glasses and so many other random old things that I've forgotten what was theirs.  So what I'm saying is maybe my perception of this situation is different from that of other people.  I'm somewhere between "normal person" and that couple in NYC who live year-round as though the year is 1940.

Anyway, Rehab Addict is full of awesome tricks and easy ways to rehabilitate sad, abused properties.  What I love the most is that she salvages everything she possibly can and puts it to some use.  She seems to mostly deal in Craftsman style, teens-era bungalows, which she picks up on the crazy cheap at auction.  She's doing the good work.  Perfect job.

Ragetyme

I totally buy Robert Pela's theory that property owners in Phoenix are burning historic buildings to get rid of them. This isn't the first place I've read about it. Many are protected by historical registers and are otherwise ineligible for demolition.  Read nyah.  Prepare to want to flip tables and scream.  If that's not how you react to stuff like this, then you're doin it wrong.

before fire.

after fire. view from behind.

I've always wanted to see the inside of this place.  I've skulked past it for years, but there never seemed to be a decent opportunity to scale the giant fence and go inside. 

Update: too fucking frustrating. This article on why the property is singular and should be saved was written weeks before the house burned. Does it not seem that if a landmark is significant enough to be added to a historical register, that it shouldn't be available for sale to just anyone? Or at least, not to some dick developer who's just going to raze it and turn it into another CVS?  Nobody in Phoenix cares about anythinggggggg fuckkkkkkk