The Grand Canyon Mary Colter buildings (Lookout Studio, Desert View, Hermits Rest)
— three buildings the canyon could have made itself.
Not only on a wall.
“Three buildings on the South Rim, drawn by Mary Colter for the Fred Harvey Company between 1914 and 1932. Lookout Studio sits near the head of the Bright Angel Trail. Hermits Rest closes the western drive. Desert View Watchtower, seventy feet of masonry modelled on Ancestral Puebloan towers, marks the east end. All three are National Historic Landmarks.
The Grand Canyon Mary Colter buildings (Lookout Studio, Desert View, Hermits Rest), on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Mary Colter designed seven buildings at the Grand Canyon between 1905 and 1935, working as principal architect for the Fred Harvey Company. Three of them sit on the South Rim drive and read as one body of work. Lookout Studio (1914) overhangs the rim near the Bright Angel trailhead. Hermits Rest (1914) marks the end of the Hermit Road, seven miles west of the village. Desert View Watchtower (1932) stands at the east end of the rim drive, twenty-six miles from Grand Canyon Village. All three are National Historic Landmarks within Grand Canyon National Park.
Colter wanted the buildings to look as if the canyon had grown them. Lookout Studio uses Kaibab limestone laid in irregular courses with the upper edge ragged against the sky, a deliberate mimicry of the rim itself. Hermits Rest fronts a single massive fireplace under a stone arch, the masonry rough and deliberately smoke-stained on opening day. Desert View Watchtower rises seventy feet in dressed sandstone, modelled on the round towers at Hovenweep and Mesa Verde. Hopi artist Fred Kabotie painted the interior murals of the first-floor Hopi Room in 1933, still in place today.
All three buildings are inside Grand Canyon National Park and require park entry. Lookout Studio is walk-up from the village rim trail and open daily. Hermits Rest is reached by the seasonal Hermit Road shuttle from March through November, when the road is closed to private cars; in winter the road opens to vehicles. Desert View Watchtower stands at the eastern entrance on Highway 64; the climb to the top deck is on a narrow interior stair, closed in heavy weather. Each is a working visitor space, with a small bookstore or gift counter staffed by the park concessioner.