One Of My Crazy Ideas

I always wanted to take an old house and fix it up.  We're talking REALLY old house.  I came very close to buying an old church near Sandpoint Idaho.  I laughingly said I'd make it a quilt shop and live in the back.

So while I was in the Benson Arizona Museum, you shouldn't be surprised to find out I asked around for information on the Arnold Hotel.  Unfortunately, this is one of those beautiful places gone bad.

It was built by Mr. and Mrs. Arnold McGinnis (a retired engineer and his wife) in 1890.  They filled it to the brim with gas lamps, a Steinway piano and fresh linens for the railroad workers and cowboys happening through town.

Mr. McGinnis died before it was finished, so his wife Nora's brother (pictured here) came to help her run the daily operations.  There were twelve rooms in the hotel, as well as a brick house with four units and several small cottages around the entire block.  Water was provided by a windmill driven well out front, which still exists today.

The hotel wasn't really used until the railroad came to town in 1906.  The tracks run right out front, so it was a short walk to overnight accommodations.

In 1910, a city water line erupted, flooding the street in front of the hotel.  City workers dug up the street, but not willing to leave the holes open at night, set up sawhorses with red lanterns to warn people before they fell in.  

Nora was furious because she said it made her hotel look like a bordelo!!

This is the hotel last year when I looked into the purchase.  I was told a local hot shot already had a grant in place for restoration and that the City was selling it to her for practically nothing.  It was to be restored and used partly as a gift shop, library sort of arrangement.  I was a day late ... literally!!

Here's the back side of the main building.

In 1933 after Nora's death, her brother sold it to a mining entrepreneur, who tried to keep it up until after World War II when a steady decline resulted in it being boarded up.  There it sat for many years.

Eventually, the last owner came back to open it up and sell every single artifact still inside the building.  What a waste.  Can you imagine how fabulous that hotel would be with the original fixtures?

On my way back from Tombstone, I stopped in to check on the progress.  Wasn't I flabbergasted when I found the hotel in even worse shape than before, now with all the boards on the porches torn off and stacked in the dirt.  Absolutely NOTHING has been done to this property.  Not even fallen trees or trash has been cleaned up.  It's a crying shame!  

I was surprised when I drove up to find a very old gentleman with long white hair and a cowboy hat, sitting on the steps.  I struck up a conversation about why it still sits here abandoned.  Apparently the hotshot who still owns it has no intention of fixing up anything.  What happened to the grant money?  Why isn't the city making her finish the project?  

Apparently she is now renting this and a couple of the other buildings on the property for storage purposes.  Are you kidding me?  Why isn't this building being restored.  It put a blue haze over my head the rest of the day.  

The next time I'm in town, I'm going back to the museum and ask those questions.  I suppose it's a crazy idea to want to fix it up, but that's what everyone says about historic buildings ... until they are restored to their original beauty.  At the very least, maybe I can shake the bushes.