Get Your O’Keeffe On at These 10 Southwestern Hotels

Santa Fe, New Mexico

This Santa Fe landmark was built in 1922 and was one of the original Harvey House Hotels along the legendary Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad. Its adobe-walled, Pueblo-revival architecture is classic New Mexico, designed to fire the imagination of travelers who came West to see Indians and wild frontier. It sits at the end of the original Santa Fe Trail and there has been a hotel of some sort on the site for more than 400 years. The La Fonda’s rooms and public spaces have kiva fireplaces, handcrafted Spanish colonial furnishings, hammered tin light fixtures, brightly colored walls and tiles, Navajo rugs and hand-carved vigas. The hotel is full of art by Native American artists from the area’s pueblos.

Sedona, Arizona

The Native American culture of northern Arizona is in the architecture at Enchantment Resort. The adobe structure is just 30 years old but its low-slung casitas blend into the iconic red walls of Boynton Canyon, reminiscent of the ancient cliff dwellings of the Anasazi who lived in the Southwest a millennia ago. Even though the place isn’t Native-owned, there are Native American flute players in the lobby, Native ceremonies at the equinoxes, and the onsite restaurant, Che-Ah-Chi, takes its name from the Apache name for the area. The decor is a sleek contemporary take on Southwestern rustic, with pricier rooms sporting viga-and-latilla ceilings and kiva fireplaces.

Paradise Valley, Arizona

This adobe inn began its life in the 1930s as the home and studio of cowboy artist Lon Megargee. He built the place himself with adobe bricks made onsite. The building features traditional Southwestern architecture with hand-carved wooden doors, kiva fireplaces and Spanish colonial corbels. Its gardens feature hundreds of cacti and other desert natives, as well as some drought-hardy, non-native plants that have been coaxed to life through the magic of irrigation. The hotel also has a large collection of Megargee’s work on display, as well as an artist-in-residence who makes art while you watch.

Taos, New Mexico

This funky hotel in downtown Taos is hippie fabulous New Mexico at its finest. Once a block of 200-year old adobe houses, the inn’s original owners bought all of them in the 1930s and turned them into a rambling hotel. The inn’s 44 rooms have kiva fireplaces, two-foot-thick adobe walls and Spanish colonial furnishings, pure northern New Mexico. The neon thunderbird sign out front advertises cocktails, curios and vacancies, pure roadside Americana. Its restaurant, Doc Martins, named for the town doctor who was the inn’s original owner, serves local favorites like chile rellenos, green chile stew and blue corn enchiladas.