Week 53: San Marcos Summer Club
The San Marcos Hotel opened with great fanfare in November of 1913. It was touted as the place where “summer spends the winter,” and it attracted a variety of wealthy winter visitors from across the country. But after that first successful winter season, Dr. Chandler, who owned the hotel, was faced with a fundamental problem: what should he do with a large resort hotel during the off season? He could either shutter it, the whole time watching this great investment property sit vacant, or he could open it back up for off season uses. Being the business minded man he was, he chose the latter. He formed the San Marcos Summer Club.
The hotel officially concluded its first season on Saturday May 2, 1914, when the executive chef of the hotel, Edmund Maraus, closed the dining hall for the summer, planning to return in the fall after spending the summer in California. As reported in the newspaper, “People from Phoenix, Mesa and other towns went to Dr. Chandler. ‘We need the San Marcos now more than ever. Don’t close it! We want some place to go for weekends and on summer evenings. We want to use it to entertain our friends this summer just as we did last winter.’”
Soon Maitland Davies’ newspaper column on movies and music in the Arizona Republican shared Chandler’s plans for the summer. “Chandler is to offer another haven of rest and amusement and coolness for the summer residents. Over there they have formed the San Marcos club under the presidency of Dr. Chandler and it is the purpose and intention of this club to transform the big roof of the San Marcos hotel into a summer garden which will be open two nights a week. Here there will be featured pictures shown and the famous meals of the popular hotel served, while in the big ball room of the hotel which will be artificially cooled the tangoists will hold sway.” Moving to great feats of exaggeration, Davies stated, “Anyone who has ever had the good fortune to spend a night at the San Marcos knows what an ideal place it is and the roof is the coolest spot in the Salt River Valley.”
By the middle of May, the Summer Club had opened, featuring a diverse guest list of locals and people from across the country. Aware that summer heat could be a detraction, the hotel went into marketing overload saying, “As delightfully adapted to its surroundings as the San Marcos proved itself to be last winter, it seems even better to fit its environment in the summer. Spanish architecture has been developed during centuries of experiments under an ardent sun, and the San Marcos is modeled upon Spanish lines. Already it has proven that even on [the] hottest days, within its great corridors and arched arcades, one finds comfort and refreshment: and against the golden welter of heat outside, its deep shadowed porches are ever ample aisles of purple coolness.”
The ”San Marcos Summer Club” would be a membership organization that was, “very exclusive, in spite of the fact that it was not expensive.” It had a credential committee which issued membership cards to the guests granting them access to all the amenities and activities the hotel had to offer. These included automobile rides through the cool countryside, moving picture features on the hotel roof, and tango and dinner parties below.
Throughout the summer, the pages of local newspapers were filled with guest lists, accounts of dinner parties, and advertisements for the twice weekly moving picture features. As summer came to an end, the San Marcos Summer Club wrapped up a successful season. The hotel prepared to once again host some of the wealthiest people in the country. Chef Maraus returned in November, signaling the beginning of the new season. Despite its success, the San Marcos Summer Club never reopened.