The Camelback Inn was first laid out in its Sonoran desert site in
1936, on the gorgeous, rocky south slope of Mummy Mountain, on
a site facing the famous hump of Camelback Mountain. Camelback
(the mountain) is a couple of miles to the south. It agreeably
dominates the view, un-ruined by the houses perched halfway up
its slope, now. It's compelling. There's some quality in the
alignment of the landscape at the Camelback (the resort) that
makes you focus on Camelback (the mountain), and contemplate
its ragged purple contour for the 55th time, and before you know
it, you've relaxed. It sneaks up on you.

Hotelier Jack Stewart came up with the motto 'Where Time Stands Still' for
this resort, which may seem like marketing drivel to you. There's
a stopped clock on the short tower by the garden pool, over the
motto. As you walk through the grounds at the Camelback,
though, that motto seems more like an intelligent perception than
sales-talk. Especially as night falls and quietly sets the sky on
fire. Time does stand still here.

 

Well, at least Time jogs in place.

In 1967, a frequent guest here, kind of an early
fast-food-and-lodgings guy named J.W. Marriott, liked it so well
he changed his business model and bought the place. Camelback
(the Inn) became the first resort under the Marriott umbrella, the
legendary long-time crown jewel of the corporation, J.W.'s own
favorite child according to rumor, and the Marriott's preferred
family vacation spot. Now, even though Scottsdale has grown up
around it, the grounds of the Camelback Inn still feels spacious,
and it's the quintessential Arizona resort. Five stars. Five
diamonds.

 

I first stayed at the Camelback as a midwestern snow escapee. A
guy easily impressed by the temperate winter climate, the exotic
plants, the quality of light, and this city full of unsolved spatial
mysteries. Now as a Phoenix resident for over a year, I'm mentally
cactus-proof, familiar with the contents of the surrounding street
grid, and the word 'Scottsdale' brings to mind a deadlocked
transit meeting instead some southwesty fantasy. I was a
tougher audience for Camelback Inn this time.

 

In layout and character, the Camelback Inn is the opposite of
the other grande dame resort here, the Biltmore. The Camelback
is everything the Biltmore is not: designed to leverage the natural
beauty of the site, informal, oriented to the outdoors, visually
varied, warm, open, friendly and comfortable. Nothing stands
more than two low stories, and all the resort buildings reference
indigenous building forms (sorta) (at least more than the
Biltmore), with rounded corners and off-center sitings, as
opposed to the Biltmore's strict geometry. There's also some
quiet, subtle, world-class xeriscape landscape architecture going
on under your feet, in sculpted rivulets and rock bridges, if you'll
pause to notice.

 

(In fact, the only intrusive element, the main thing where the
Biltmore has the Camelback beat, is the winding asphalt roads
and parking lots cut through the property. The Biltmore is a
pedestrian-only enclave. The Camelback Inn should be. It's easy
to wish the roads gone, since they're space-inefficient, polluting,
ugly, destructive to the resort's character, the wrong color, and
they also bring cars, which also polluting, ugly, etc. etc. Too bad
they couldn't work out some other system. My prejudices tell me
that the desired guest demographic here tends toward Lincoln
drivers of higher-than-average income level and
lower-than-average willingness to walk more than thirty paces,
but those are my prejudices talking, excuse me.)

Every guest room at the Camelback Inn is a casita. Most adjoin,
a few sit lightly on top of others in low buff-colored Pueblo
buildings, a few are kiva-style, but they're essentially all little
apartments. Every single one has a lovely view. The two I've
seen from the inside were absurdly comfortable, decorated in fine
masculine Southwestern taste, have huge sybaritic but practical
bathrooms, and oodles of storage. And the full complement of
giveaways. Some day I hope to live up to being treated this well.

 

The new Camelback Golf Club is fresh from a $16M redesign by
Arthur Hills. The 27,000 square foot (good lord!) spa features a
'Native-American inspired Hot Stone Massage', (which is as good
a straight line as I'll pass up today. Email me with your own joke.
We'll have a contest if you like). I don't know a thing about either
one of these amenities, except to make the side comment that
any Scottsdale resort without both golf course and spa, even the
Royal Palms, is seen as a poor cousin.

The Garden pool and fountain at the Camelback sits right in
back of the lodge-style lobby complex, in the locus of a vast,
complicated, bowl-shaped outdoor garden room that includes the
patios of the oldest guest rooms on its perimeter. This outdoor
room nicely blurs the distinction between inside and outside, and
manages to suggest a big, ongoing, rustic, cosmopolitan party.
This is a terrific space.

 

The Jackrabbit pool - the fun pool - is located in the middle of
the property. Expansive, lavish, and open 24 hours. This strikes
me as an imaginable luxury, a pool open 24 hours, every day of
the year, where I'm welcome any time I happen to be awake, but
I'm naïve. The Jackrabbit is flanked by a patio restaurant, an
exercise room, two star-shaped hot tubs, an outdoor bar or
three, and a kid's area with a sandy corner, Tonka backhoes
included, and a surprise fountain that incorporates five monstrous
Gekko lizards on a low garden wall. During the day, they spit cold
water; at night, their eyes glow from red to green and back
again, terrifying even me.

And the Camelback Inn includes the Mummy Mountain Western
Town, a puzzling Boot Hill-style addition just up the slope from
the spa. I can't imagine this fake ghost town pays for itself as a
cookout spot. It's not maintained well - at least it wasn't last
weekend. But at least it tells you that this property retains some
looseness, some error, some remaining impractical whim, and
that's a great sign. Kids would love it. (MMWT would make an
ideal site for single-shot old-west gentleman's paint ball, if there
was such a thing.)

 

The price. Well, I'm uncomfortable telling you this. The rack rate,
you know, is hotel jargon for the agreed-on fiction, the sticker
price, the number posted on the back of the bathroom door. The
rack rate here is $450/night. I'll give you a moment to react.

(Reaction time here.)

It's probable that during the torturously superheated summer
season you could find a Camelback Inn weekday rate of $149 or
so, something like that. It's also probable that money can buy
certain forms of happiness. We don't like to think so. It runs
against my grain to say so. Say what you like about extravagance as
a vice, and on like that - I sympathize with you, but I don't agree
with you any more. The next-best-things in life are astronomically
expensive. This is one.