Hotel San Carlos

By Robert A. Melikian

On the corner of Central Avenue and Monroe Street, in the center of downtown Phoenix, is the historic Hotel San Carlos. Local Native Americans once worshipped a god of learning in this same area, and so early white settlers chose the site for the city's first school, the Little Adobe School, in 1873. After the Little Adobe School, the location served as a ballpark, a brick schoolhouse, the Central School, and finally the Hotel San Carlos, which opened in March 1928. The first hotel in Phoenix to boast steam heat, elevators, and air-conditioning, Hotel San Carlos has a remarkable story and has even seen its share of movie stars, including Mae West, Gene Autry, and Marilyn Monroe. Clark Gable always stayed in the same corner room on the fourth floor so he could people-watch. Even the friendly ghost of Leone Jensen, who appears regularly at the foot of the guest beds, has added to the unique legacy and continuing popularity of Hotel San Carlos.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781439623411

Robert A. Melikian

Author Robert Melikian grew up in Phoenix, and his family has owned and operated one of Phoenix’s oldest hotels, the Hotel San Carlos, since 1973. In this book, Melikian showcases the area’s evolution from an “oasis in the desert” to a cosmopolitan city using more than 200 vintage images from the Arizona State University McLaughlin Collection, the Phoenix Museum of History, and private collections.

Book preview

Phoenix—GT

INTRODUCTION

The story of the Hotel San Carlos and its site at the corner of Central Avenue and Monroe Street in downtown Phoenix mirrors the history of the city of Phoenix, with dreamers, optimism, tourism, manufactured elegance, and bad timing. Constructed in 1927 and opened on March 19, 1928, the San Carlos was the first hotel in Phoenix with evaporative cooling. This amenity, plus ice water 24 hours a day delivered from a gold spigot in every room, commanded a dollar more per night than any other local hotel. Through the highs and lows of downtown Phoenix and the country over the decades, this building has persevered and the Melikian family has been proud to be its temporary custodian.

Built with co-owner Dwight Heard’s money and designed by renowned West Coast architect George Whitecross Ritchie, the seven-story Italian Renaissance–style structure was a state-of-the-art facility. It was built in response to the growing need for tourist hotels in Phoenix during the 1920s. Phoenix was connected to the rest of the nation by regular airline service in 1926 and mainline railroad service in 1927. These factors, along with the popularity of the automobile, brought an influx of tourists to Phoenix, especially wealthier ones. A number of other prominent hotels were also built at this time to meet the demand—Hotel Westward Ho (1929), Arizona Biltmore (1929), Wigwam in Litchfield Park (1929), Jokake Inn (1926), Hermosa Inn (1925), and Camelback Inn (1936). They opened just in time for the Depression.

Dwight Heard was one of Phoenix’s leading citizens, and he relentlessly promoted the city nationwide starting with his arrival in Phoenix from Chicago in 1895. He invested in real estate and became very wealthy and influential—he owned the Arizona Republican newspaper. The Heard Building, the tallest building in the state, had recently been surpassed, and he was looking for another project. He owned the Central Avenue and Monroe Street block and realized that there was a huge demand for high-end accommodations for tourists arriving in Phoenix.

Heard, along with co-owner Charles Harris, who managed the property and lived with his family in the penthouse, built the elegant San Carlos, with its lobby of tapestries of medieval Italy hanging on the walls and high molded ceilings that graced the hotel entrance. Fires were a huge concern, so the hotel was built with poured concrete to make it fireproof. Adjoining the lobby was the Palm Room Restaurant, outdoor Sun Room, dancing hall, card rooms, and a coffee shop known as the French Café. This was Dwight Heard’s last major project, as he died in 1929.

The San Carlos was, and remains, a major Phoenix attraction. Celebrities such as George Raft, Betty Grable, Carole Lombard, Mae West, and Marilyn Monroe spent time here. Clark Gable was a regular and had a standing room at the hotel—Room 412, a corner room on the busy intersection of Central Avenue and Monroe Street. It was high enough so that people would not see him, and he liked to watch people on the street and observe their mannerisms and gestures to get acting tips. He would order food and drinks and sit there for hours watching Phoenicians. A friend of his would pick him up and to go mountain-lion hunting in Northern Arizona. The San Carlos now has stars in the sidewalk and 12 suites in honor of celebrities.

On May 7, 1928, only 49 days after the hotel opened, Leone Jenson, 22, checked into the San Carlos and, apparently heartbroken from the lost love of a bellboy at a nearby hotel, ended her life by jumping off the roof of the seven-story hotel, garbed in her elegant evening gown with a hat in her hand. Since her death in 1928, friendly sightings have been reported by witnesses who believe to have seen the white apparition of a women’s figure at the foot of their beds, accompanied by unexplainable breezes.

There are also constant reports that the ghosts of three young boys have been heard running through the halls of the San Carlos and laughing. The unexplained sounds of these children are said to be those of three Native American boys—two brothers and a friend—who lost their ball down the well and went in after it. The running water of the underground stream beneath downtown Phoenix that the well ties into drowned the boys. The sound of the boys is most noticeable in the basement.

The 1930s and the Depression crippled Phoenix hotels and tourism; business picked up only with World War II. The hotel was filled with servicemen. They came back after the war and stayed at the hotel while looking for a place to live. The hotel had so much money that it built a three-story addition on its west side that included a state-of-the-art rooftop swimming pool.

Through the 1950s, there was more of a long-term-stay mentality at the San Carlos and at other hotels in Phoenix. Guests would travel with their servants, and the San Carlos had a six bedroom, five-bath apartment where the servants would stay.

The 1960s saw downtown decline, and so did the San Carlos. The city’s growth was to the north and east suburbs. The Harris family trust finally sold the hotel in