San Marcos Hotel

The two story reinforced concrete hotel has offset rectangular massing with Mission Revival details. Designed within the geometry of a 17 foot by 17 foot structural grid, the Irregular plan fits within a rectangle measuring 187 feet by 221 feet. Distinctive features include the uniquely detailed structural system, flat roofs with parapet embattlements, arcades with segmental arches, and towers topped with red tile roofs and curve linear parapets. The portion of the hotel constructed in 1912 and 1913 was viewed as only an initial phase of development by Dr. Chandler, the owner, and Arthur B, Benton, the architect: "The hotel building will be of reinforced concrete construction and will have all the latest improvements in hotel buildings. Many of the rooms will be provided with private sleeping balconies. The portion which is to be built at once includes 35 guest rooms, but plans for the entire structure of about 200 rooms are outlined and so arranged that construction of additional wings and stories can proceed without interfering in any way with the hotel business".[9] The original portion of the hotel is "Z" shaped with the north wing placed on the corner of the block north to south, (68 feet by 136 feet) extending west and the south wing placed right up to the southeast corner of the block, (68 feet by 119 feet) extending east. The connecting wing (measuring 51 feet by 85 feet) ts slightly higher but compatible. In plan and elevation the building reflects the original Intention of extending wings to the north and construction of at least one additional floor, with the unusual parapet embattlements really nothing more than the base for the next story. Major additions never occurred because additional rooms were gained by constructing clustered "Bungalows," eventually numbering 30 to the west of the main hotel building. The open spaces formed by the building mass to the northeast and southwest became a patio and a garden respectively. The patio was framed on the north and east by a pergola constructed of Tuscan columns and heavy timber trellis work. The pergola also extended around the east and south facades of the south wing, but only the north portion remains, enclosed as office space. The main image of the building is one of continuous but varied solid and void juxtapositions, with all voids topped by semicircular or segmental arches. On the ground floor this is expressed in the continuous Inset arcade along the south and west sides of the patio leading to the hotel entry. The segmental arches have square piers with beveled corners and corbelled imposts at the spring line. A passageway connects through the building to the west garden and originally connected south through the middle of the south wing to the street. As originally constructed the exterior of the hotel was concrete gray in color with either the raw structure, expressing both its wooden framework and simple Mission Revival detailing, or the Portland cement stucco, used over brick to infill some areas of the structural grid, visible. The most progressive and interesting features of the structural system are the monolithic cast-in-place floor and ceiling slabs, which feature elongated and repetitive arched coving, expressive of the Mission Revival. These were originally painted, on the interior, with Indian and Spanish American motifs.

In January 1982, James W. Garrison (Historical Architect), James W. Woodward (Architectural Historian), Cindy Myers (Historical Archaeologist), Sylvia Bender-Lamb (Historical Geographer) submitted the hotel to the Arizona State Historic Preservation Office citing national significance of Architecture and Community Planning.[3] On 1 March 1982, the Arizona State Historic Preservation Officer, Ann Pritzlaff, submitted the nomination form to the National Park Service and on 27 April 1982, was entered into the National Register of Historic Places.[3] The San Marcos Hotel was entered into the NRHP citing architectural and community planning significance.