Arizona Biltmore is a hotel of legend and lies. I'm living proof of one
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I can confirm one of the legends of the Arizona Biltmore. I nearly killed myself proving it’s true.
The historic hotel has long captured the interest of Phoenicians, even before its sale to a British firm for a cool $705 million was announced this week.
This “Jewel of the Desert” rose at the start of a Great Depression and has survived nearly 100 years.
Fashioned in the art deco of its era, it represents the last audible whoops and hollers of a decade of wealth and excess.
The Arizona Biltmore is a place of legend
One of her charms is the many stories that accompany her.
Some of them are even true.
But sorting fact from fiction is the trick. So here goes ...
Did Marilyn Monroe sunbathe there?
Did Irving Berlin pen the first lyrics of “White Christmas” there?
Did the hotel have a pink sidewalk that meandered up the mountainside?
Did the Biltmore provide a secret room for guests to imbibe during Prohibition?
I stand witness to one of these stories and will confirm from personal experience it actually happened.
It’s the third.
My friend and I lived, barely, to prove a legend
The Biltmore actually had a pink sidewalk that snaked through the desert and up into the foothills of Piestewa Peak.
I know that because when I was a kid growing up in the early 1970s, my friend Bradley White and I would ride our bikes up that sidewalk and fly all the way down.
The Biltmore was near our neighborhood in what was then considered northeast Phoenix. And we would from time to time ride over there on our Stingrays and 10-speeds to glide down that ribbon of pink.
The Arizona Republic has reported that the 1- to 2-mile long sidewalk was built sometime between 1928 and 1931. In 1973, the hotel stopped maintaining it. That’s about when Brad and I came along.
The Biltmore called the color of its sidewalk terra cotta, but us kids all called it “The Pink Sidewalk.”
Brad and I have since reminisced about it as adults. More precisely, we have winced that we were actually that stupid to ride at top speed down a very narrow strip of concrete, past boulders and sharp rocks and cacti.
If we had ever caught our own kids doing something that stupid, they would have gotten the what-for.
As for the Biltmore's other legends, well ...
As for Marilyn Monroe, the website Thrillest talked to former Biltmore historian Becky Blaine and reported that the hotel never found any documented history of Monroe or her aliases ever staying at the resort.
“It’s likely that the Hollywood starlet was kind of a ‘pool crasher,’ sneaking away from Downtown Phoenix’s Westward Ho after filming movies in the ‘50s.”
As for White Christmas, Arizona's Official State Historian Marshall Trimble knocked that one down in a 2016 story by Fox 10 Phoenix.
The historic record shows that Irving Berlin wrote his classic song either in New York or California, Trimble noted.
However, there was, indeed, a secret room at the Biltmore where male guests could spirit away during Prohibition for a glass of Scotch. I’ve written about that one, myself.
The Biltmore legends are fun to contemplate, and Brad and I were happy to risk our lives to confirm one of them.
Older and wiser now, if Brad and I had to do over, I’m sure we would limit our research to the more historically significant question of Marilyn Monroe.
Phil Boas is an editorial columnist for The Arizona Republic. Email him at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Biltmore is filled with legends and lies. I can confirm 1
