Glad to see more Arizona coverage that doesn't include politics! Cannot wait to stay here come fall. Really enjoyed this article and the recent article on the Jerome/Cottonwood/Page Springs wine region. There is another ambitious hospitality project that recently opened near Payson, AZ called Terra Farm & Manor that focuses on an all encompassing culinary experience.
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"It's about passion not profit" - I would love it, can I stay for free?
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@Paul Adams No, that will be $2,200 per night for you sir!
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With all that money, did the Watts’ really have to develop it? They couldn’t have just let well enough alone and preserved it? Such greed.
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I wrote an article about Castle Hot Springs for the Phoenix New Times during the 90s when it was closed. There was a very nice caretaker, however, and several dogs who just showed up. The pig is a pot-bellied pig; when it was walking across the lawn toward me, I thought for a moment it was a hippopotamus.
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"...and guests choose their own adventures from back-to-the-land activities like harvesting chrysanthemum greens and borage for salads right outside the main lodge’s kitchen door, riding trail horses and hiking the Bradshaw Mountains."
You want a back-to-the-land adventure? Well it sure doesn't help the environment to jet/helicopter/4-wheel thousands of miles to do it. Instead, hike and forage in woods near your home, remove your lawn and plant native species, grow your own food.
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The Castle Hot Springs area is home to numerous exotic and beautiful wildflowers. It is a sin to uproot them all to install a water-hungry, maintenance-intensive greensward for playing croquet.
Lawns are great for England and Ireland! Lawns are alien to Arizona!
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ASU owned the hot springs briefly in the early ‘80s, and I had the good fortune to attend a couple of retreats there.
The accommodations were fairly spartan, but the hot springs were fantastic.
The water is clean, pure, and hot! A smaller pool where they come out of the ground is the hottest, then slip over the edge and lounge around in the large pool pictured in the article.
A wonderful experience. Glad it is reopened although I’ll not be able to afford it. Worth preserving.
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While it's admirable that this rare, unique, and beautiful oasis is being appreciated and used in a sensitive way by private developers, it's a shame the property couldn't have been purchased by a public entity or non-profit so the rest of us who can't afford at least $660 for a night's stay could visit and appreciate the property as well, rather than it being a haven for the rich. I do have to add that a big green lawn in a place like that seems to me to be out of place, aesthetically and environmentally too, even if there is plenty of water for it.
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Other than the hot springs, where's the potable water coming from? That lawn looks very pretty - what's going to keep it that way? These are questions that Arizonans are trained to ask when it comes to any real estate development, and this is no different.
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