In one of the greatest tragedies in Thompson family history, officials at the Phoenician hotel raised Mabel Thompson Filor’s historically significant Phoenix estate to make way for the Canyon Suites, a bland collection of luxury vacation cottages.
A Starwood Hotel website — Starwood bought the Phoenician about 10 years ago — attempts to put the best face on this abomination, claiming in breathless marketing-speak that the cottages somehow evoke “the grandeur and heritage of its predecessor.” Fat chance.
In fairness, it’s unclear whether Mabel built the sleek adobe structure that used to grace this spot at the foot of Camelback Mountain. She wintered at 65 East Country Club Drive with her second husband Samuel Garner Wilson, whom she married in 1937, shortly after she bought the Arcadia estate. Wilson was active in the Phoenix Polo Club along with Mabel’s brother, J.E. Thompson, who donated land for a field. Mabel also owned a stately New Jersey mansion overlooking the Hudson where clergy now live.
Mabel’s estate, northwest of the main hotel, was still there when the Phoenician first opened in 1988. It was purchased to make way for the Canyon Suites about a decade later. Now it isn’t, this blogger learned on a recent visit. A concierge, when asked if pictures of the Maine Chance were kept on a wall somewhere in the hotel, got nervous. “No,” she said, “the only thing we have is about the construction of the hotel [the Phoenician]. We don’t have anything from before.”
Elizabeth bought the building in 1846, a year after Mabel died, and did renovations that turned it into the Maine Chance, which was still operating in the 1990s. The Starwood site says that Arden opened “the world-renowned Maine Chance Spa on the very spot where The Canyon Suites now stands.” The spa drew celebrities, royalty, and other rich people to be lowered into a tub of hot wax, like bananas dipped in chocolate. The procedure allegedly moisturized the skin.
The Phoencian was built by Charley Keating, a wealthy banker who ran Lincoln Savings and Loan Association and was involved in the savings and loan scandal of the late 1980s. When Lincoln failed in 1989, about 23,000 customers were stuck with worthless bonds and the taxpayer with a tab of more than $3 billion. Keating, who attempted to curry favor with U.S. Senators for preferential treatment from regulators, served four and a half years in prison for fraud. Though his convictions were overturned in 1996, he subsequently pleaded guilty to a limited set of fraud counts. He was sentenced to time he had already served.
The Phoenician is described by one travel blog as a “homage” to Keating’s “wretchedly fabulous excess.” Construction of the hotel, which cost $300 million, was beset by last-minute design changes, many ordered by Keating’s wife, Mary Elaine, an interior designer. The couple named restaurants at the hotel after themselves.
Keating’s intent, according to marketing brochures, was not to make the hotel indigenous to its environment. Instead, he imported white marble from Italy, etched the lobby ceiling in 24-karat gold, and hired workers from the Island Kingdom of Tonga to create a “lush tropical landscape” in an environment that averages only about 8 inches of rainfall a year, compared to a U.S. average of 37.
Only a few pictures exist of the way the building looked before Arden’s renovations, though there are plenty of pictures of the Maine Chance spa. The black-and-white photos probably show the house before Arden’s renovations. The color photos come from postcards labeled “Maine Chance.”
John Miles says
I enjoyed reading this piece very much, as it aroused in me the same sense of nostalgia that Mr. Thompson obviously feels. My parents took us on a family car trip every March from 1958 through 1964 to Scottsdale, where we stayed at the Jokake Inn. We made the drive straight through from Kansas City in 19-20 hours. I remember my parents talking about Elizabeth Arden, who (as we did) stayed in one of the little casitas on the property. It was a glorious place, a glorious time. We stopped in the Sugar Bowl on Scottsdale Road for ice cream almost every night. I can remember sitting around the piano in the main building, many hours at the pool. It is sad indeed that Jokake is gone.
Vince says
For three seasons (approximately between 1960 & 1963) I worked as bell hop & chauffeur for one Mrs. Bane , at. Jokake. Mrs. Bane along with her maid &cook vacationed in one of the individual homes on the property.
A Mr. Bailey was the resort manager. I recall Shelly Winters and Walter Pigeon staying at the resort & chauffeuring guests to the Sombrero theater in Phoenix.
I have other recollections if interested.
KC Butler says
When I was 8 yrs old my family flew to Arizona in DC-7 to spend a few weeks of winter. I have always remembered that we stayed at the Jokake Inn st Camelback Mt..It has dismayed me until now that what I had firmly remembered as, ” Jokake Inn”, was not confirmed until now, having done searching on the internet. As an 8 year old girl living in a suburb of Detroit in the 1950’s, it was impossible for the then, culturally sent ranched, narrow minded, people of this locale to understand or care why an 8 yr.old girl would want to be a cowboy. I loved the Jokake Inn and the “cowboys” who gave me horseback riding lessons ! Should have moved West !!
Eric Shaw says
My father was a security Guard /Driver for many years in the late 80’and early 90’s at the Maine Chance. In the summer my friends and I and a GF or two were allowed to use the pool on the grounds. and in the winter I had the chance to meet some of the upper class clients. it would be a few years later in my life that I had a realization on who I met … members of the Lilly families, a Kennedy or two and a Rockefeller.