Henry Taylor Marks 50 Years Since Saving the Weatherford Hotel From Demolition

The labor of love that followed inspired a downtown restoration movement.

The traveler, Milan Horacek, wandered the halls of the Weatherford Hotel, hungrily absorbing details of the historic building and filled with emotion about visiting the place where Western author Zane Grey stayed and wrote. Grey’s novels fed young Czech boys’ and girls’ imaginations with the spirit of freedom and tales of adventure in the wide-open West.

“My country is crazy about the American West,” he said, noting that Grey’s books were available, even under Communist rule. “As a person who grew up reading about the West and to walk into the place of my favorite author gives me shivers down my spine. It would be so sad if it didn’t exist.”

“So sad,” was also how Weatherford owner Henry Taylor felt when he learned of the scheduled demise of the once magnificent Victorian building on the corner of Leroux Street and Aspen Avenue. Henry and his brother, Lloyd, who grew up in Holbrook in a historic hotel, combined efforts to purchase and save the building on May 19, 1975.

“There were just transients living here. There was no economic reason to try to save it,” said Henry in a 2007 Arizona Daily Sun article by Betsey Bruner. “It was tough trying to sell history downtown, because no one cared about history, and then we found that picture.”

It was a photo from 1906 that revealed the wrap-around balconies. “They were beautiful, and we learned how hotel guests would enjoy watching the town’s Fourth of July parades from them,” said Henry. “We had no idea what was there!”

The late astronomer Henry Giclas later shared how, as a child, he tried to sneak a peek of the view. “He told me he was shooed off the balconies with a broom in the hands of Mrs. Weatherford, who firmly stated, ‘The balconies are for guests only!’” recalled Taylor.   

The original builder, John W. Weatherford, was a wealthy businessman who had elaborate business plans and great expectations for Flagstaff. Among other buildings, he created the Majestic Theater Opera House, now the Orpheum Theatre, and built the extraordinary hotel as a lovely respite from the Arizona Territory for cultured easterners. He also created a toll road to the top of the San Francisco Peaks. The Weatherford Road, now the Weatherford Trail, never succeeded and eventually bankrupted the Texan.

Henry, a counselor in the 1970s, kept the three-story building afloat by housing vocational rehabilitation clients in the rooms. Meanwhile, tirelessly and methodically, the two brothers worked to repair the distressed hotel, once deemed “first class in every way” by The Coconino Sun when it opened on the first day of the 20th century.

By all accounts, it was a grand building inside and out, with rare comforts such as hot and cold water, electricity and a sun parlor. Among its guests were U.S. presidents, famous artists and legendary lawmen.

By the late 1970s, Henry and Lloyd had created a space for musicians to perform and a restaurant to attract guests to help finance the project. Steve Willis was among the first to perform in Charly’s Pub and Grill.

“I was in the house band at the Widowmaker when Henry and his brother were remodeling. They would come down there all sweaty and dirty,” said Willis. “They turned the hotel into an important music scene long before the remodeling was finished. We’d store our equipment in what was the kitchen, and it was like an on-going party back then.”

Willis remembers many great musicians who played there, including Jimmy Rogers, widely regarded as the “Father of Country Music,” and John Fahey, who reportedly was to the solo acoustic guitar what Jimi Hendrix was to the electric.

“Henry’s little club turned into a great place for national acts to play, which is why Charly’s Pub and Grill was voted into the Arizona Blues Hall of Fame,” said Willis.

“Charly’s was a real hub for live music,” said long-time musician and Limbs Akimbo founder Jimmy DeBlois, who performed there often. “It was a big reason why I decided to move to Flagstaff. Henry always treated me and the other musicians well and Charly’s was well-known for having really good live music. It drew an appreciative crowd.”

Pamela “Sam” Green was pulled into the vortex of the old hotel in 1980, when she began waiting tables in Charly’s. She fell in love with the building’s architectural beauty and with Taylor. In 1983, they wed.

“When I met Henry, it was like Karma. We had an interest in saving old buildings and history. He could do the electrical and plumbing, and I could do the painting and decorating,” Sam said in a 2011 Arizona Daily Sun interview with Betsey Bruner.

The couple lived above the bar for a decade as Henry worked on the hotel’s structural integrity and Sam added the historic aesthetics. “It was a long time before we made money here,” said Henry. “We kept it going by working it all the time.”

The couple’s daughter, Chelsea, was born during that time. Chelsea spent her first day of life behind the bar in Charly’s as Sam bartended.

“In, 1995, I was about to lose my mind living above live music late into the night for 10 years,” said Sam. “At the same time, the whole downtown was torn up with restoration projects. We struggled to buy a house on Cherry Avenue, but that gave us some space away from the construction and the nightclub noise, which helped our sanity. The city put time and energy into the streetscape and the streetlamps, and life downtown became a little easier.”

“Henry’s vision and passion for restoring the Weatherford Hotel no doubt inspired other businesses as well as the City of Flagstaff to recognize how special and meaningful these historic buildings are to Northern Arizona and beyond,” said former Flagstaff Mayor Chris Bavasi. “He and Sam have an undeniable love for our community. We can thank them for contributing greatly to the 1990s restoration movement in the downtown that created the beautiful and thriving historic district we enjoy today.”

The hotel’s basement, which housed various businesses including a radio station, a cobbler’s shop and even an underground passageway to the Orpheum, also served as the hotel’s workshop and storage space. Old medicine and whiskey bottles, a tall redwood door with a bullet hole through it and other remnants from Flagstaff’s storied past could be found there, including an extraordinary antique bar rescued from another old hotel.

This treasure trove of nostalgia, hidden under the building, continued to whisper to the Taylors, spurring their imaginations and motivating them to keep doing the work. In 1997, they opened the sophisticated Zane Grey Ballroom, featuring that heavy antique bar. The corner windows of the second-floor ballroom look out over the town with the San Francisco Peaks as the backdrop, a unique space that continues to offer a favorite view for wedding couples and others celebrating momentous occasions.

In 1996, they completed restoration efforts on the space that held Flagstaff’s telephone exchange, where operators once connected calls by hand, and opened the doors to the Exchange Pub.

Barely stopping long enough to catch their breath and honor their hard work, Henry and Sam pressed on, this time securing a $100,500 Arizona Heritage Fund matching grant (60% from the Taylors and 40% from the state) to reconstruct the balconies. They were completed in 1999.

As the hotel’s 100th anniversary neared, the idea for a New Year’s Eve celebration and Great Pinecone Drop emerged in a hotel staff meeting. Sam and Henry styled their pinecone out of a garbage can covered in real pinecones and adorned it with a tangle of holiday lights.

Locals welcomed the humble creation as their own quirky symbol of hope for the New Year and faithfully cheered as it was lowered to the street at midnight, ushering in Jan. 1, 2000, thus marking the hotel’s 100th anniversary and ringing in a new century with a new mountain town tradition.

Since then, the Great Pinecone has evolved into a 100-pound, six-foot-tall original metal sculpture with some 200 petals sporting LED lights. It now attracts more than 10,000 revelers for the New Year’s Eve countdown each year.

“The Great Pinecone Drop has become a much-anticipated event, and the historic Weatherford Hotel is truly an icon for Flagstaff,” said Discover Flagstaff Executive Director Trace Ward. “The magnificent building is part of the sense of arrival for our visitors from around the world. We are all so grateful for Henry’s stewardship of the Weatherford Hotel,”

Today, the Weatherford Hotel is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the Great Pinecone Drop is considered fifth among the nation’s New Year’s Eve drops by USA Today readers and the dark basement is now the bustling speakeasy-styled bar, The Gopher Hole Pub, a nod to the Gopher Hole game room that occupied the space a century ago.

“Sometimes we get lucky and have a visionary in our midst whose actions guarantee a better future for our community,” said Flagstaff Mayor Becky Daggett. “Henry Taylor is one of those visionaries who helped to guarantee the vibrancy of Flagstaff’s entire downtown when he purchased the Weatherford Hotel in 1975 and saved it from demolition.”

With half a century of improvements, including bracing the entire building from the basement to the third floor with steel columns and wooden beams, the 24,000-square-foot stone building offers 17 early 1900s-themed rooms, Charly’s Pub and Grill, the Zane Grey Ballroom and The Gopher Hole Pub plus 800 square feet of balconies and the nationally celebrated Great Pinecone Drop.

“Not surprising that an Arizona native, Henry Taylor, saw opportunities in the historic Weatherford Hotel and the need to preserve the early days of Flagstaff’s western logging town atmosphere,” said Coconino County Supervisors Board Chair and District 1 Supervisor Patrice Horstman. “Together with Sam, they re-vitalized this Flagstaff institution with fine dining, a hotel, a community gathering place and a centerpiece for musical entertainment. Henry and Sam were instrumental in the revitalization of Flagstaff’s downtown, setting a new standard for Flagstaff’s downtown businesses. As a student at NAU in the mid-1970s, and throughout my decades in Flagstaff, the Weatherford and Charly’s Pub have been and remain a part of my life and an essential part of our community.”

“I tell Henry and Sam there should be a statue of them in the downtown, for all they’ve done to make Flagstaff so special for the community, for musicians and for all who visit,” said Willis. FBN

By Bonnie Stevens, FBN

Photo by Betsey Bruner: Henry Taylor purchased the hotel May 19, 1975, pulling it back from the edge of destruction. He met Sam Green in 1980 and the two of them have worked side-by-side to restore the building from its bottom basement to its crowning cupola.