El Rancho Hotel Lobby - Route 66
by Susan Rissi Tregoning
Title
El Rancho Hotel Lobby - Route 66
Artist
Susan Rissi Tregoning
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
For the ultimate vintage luxury Route 66 experience, the historic El Rancho Hotel should be your #1 choice for a night in Gallup, New Mexico.
Constructed in 1936 for R.E. "Griff" Griffith, the brother of the famous movie director D.W. Griffith, the El Rancho Hotel was designed by architect Joe Massaglia. The hotel has all the grandeur of old Hollywood and a picturesque "fantasy of the Old West," rustic western style rarely found in Gallup.
The main entry leads into an elaborate two-story lobby that meshes the feel of a hunting lodge with rusticated western grandeur. The lobby's focal point is a double staircase of split logs with railings of naturally bent tree limbs that have been stripped and highly polished. The elaborate staircase wraps around a spectacular walk-in stone fireplace intimately set back into a cove under the balcony that wraps around the room's perimeter. Furnishings of heavy dark wood, Navajo rugs, and deer heads complete the look.
From the very beginning and until the mid-1960s, El Rancho was the center of the movie industry in Gallup. The Griffith brothers encouraged movie makers to use their hotel as its base for their stars and crew because of its proximity to striking western landscapes and its extravagant elegance boasting of superior service with its employees trained by the famous Fred Harvey Company.
The El Rancho Hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.
Copyright 2022 Susan Rissi Tregoning
Uploaded
February 19th, 2022
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