AHWAHNEE – NEW LUSTRE FOR THE CROWN JEWEL

by Bennett Owen

“…On entering The Ahwahnee one is conscious of calm and complete beauty echoing the mood of majesty and peace that is the essential quality of Yosemite…”

Ansel Adams         

Photo courtesy of flythebirdpath~} teddy

And the great photographer ought to know. He was a frequent breakfast guest at the lodge while recording the many definitive images we’ve come to associate with Yosemite.  Truly, if man could make his mark on such a rare and awesome spot of earth he could not have left a finer contribution than the Ahwahnee.  The words ‘rustic’ and ‘regal grandeur’ really shouldn’t be used in the same sentence but when writing about Gilbert Stanley Underwood’s masterpiece it’s impossible not to.  Here’s a small sampling of the VIPs who’ve slept at the Ahwahnee since its grand opening in 1927:

• Queen Ratna of Nepal
• The Shah of Iran
• King Baudouin of Belgium,
• Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie
• Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip

Photo courtesy of OpenRoad.TV

Mary Curry Tressider Suite. Photo courtesy of Ellipses Public Relations

American royalty also gravitates to the Ahwahnee:

• FDR
• Dwight D. Eisenhower
• John F. Kennedy
• Herbert Hoover
• Ronald Reagan

Not to mention the greatest Hollywood legends of all time.

Sure, they came for a first hand look at the wonders of Yosemite; the Half Dome; the Upper Falls; Glacier Point; the massive Sequoias. But you know they would have high-tailed it out of there by sundown if the choice of lodging were anything less grand.  And ‘grand’ is what National Park director Stephen Mather was looking for when he commissioned Underwood to design a hotel that would draw upwardly mobile guests to balance out the riff raff he felt was crowding out the canyon. What Mather got was the single manmade tourist magnet Yosemite has to offer.

Photo courtesy of Steve Corey

As in all of his national park masterpieces, Underwood sought to integrate the lodge into the landscape and in doing so achieved the impossible, adding to the perfect natural beauty surrounding the high mountain meadow the Miwok Indians called Ahwahnee.  With his keen and budget-busting eye for aesthetics, Underwood brought in five thousand tons of rough-cut, polished granite that perfectly mirrored the surrounding cliffs. He added 30-thousand feet of timber and for stability he poured additional tons of concrete into forms that made it look like redwood logs (yes, earthquakes and fires were a concern and construction factor in 1925, too).

Photo courtesy of Ellipses Public Relations

And here’s Ansel Adams’ son telling about how the Ahwahnee played a role in capturing one of the most famous photographs of all time.

Photo courtesy of naturemandala

Conclusion of AWHAHNEE – NEW LUSTRE FOR THE CROWN JEWEL tomorrow.