Painted Desert Inn Informations

Painted Desert Inn is a lodge complex in Petrified Forest National Park, in Navajo County, eastern Arizona. It is located off of Interstate 40 and historic U.S. Route 66, overlooking the Painted Desert.

The inn's lodge building and adobe guest cabins−casitas were designed in the Pueblo Revival style, by National Park Service architect Lyle E. Bennett and others from the Park Service Branch of Plans and Design. Construction was carried out by Civilian Conservation Corps builders and artisans over 1937–1940. A portion of the main lodge building was remodeled from the 1920s inn on the site, known as the Stone Tree House due to much local petrified wood used in its architectural elements.

After post-war design revisions by architect Mary Jane Colter, it was operated by the Fred Harvey Company as a Harvey House from 1947 to 1963, when it closed. Demolition was proposed in the mid-1970s, but after public protests the building was reopened for limited use in 1976. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.

The main lodge building of the Painted Desert Inn was extensively rehabilitated and restored, reopening as a museum and bookstore in 2006. Overnight accommodations are not currently available at the inn, but during the summer months it has a nostalgic soda fountain and ice cream parlor.

Hopi artist Fred Kabotie was engaged by Colter to paint the Inn's murals in 1947–48. Colter knew Kabotie from a previous collaboration at the Fred Harvey Hopi House in Grand Canyon National Park. Kabotie's work depicts aspects of Hopi life, including a journey through the Painted Desert to collect salt.

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