Royal Palms Hotel & Casitas

The hotel provides the public with little information about its history. Our team researches the hotel's past, from the very beginning, verifying its exact opening date and providing an overview of its history up to the present day.?If you have any useful information and would like to share it, please send it to archives@famoushotels.org.?Thank you This is what we know so far (attention: unverified history!): Nestled between downtown Scottsdale and Camelback Mountain, the Royal Palms Hotel remains the luxurious retreat that its builders intended. Delos Cooke, a New York industrialist and nephew of J.P. Morgan, and his wife Florence built their winter home on 65 acres in 1929. The mansion, a mix of Spanish, Mediterranean and colonial design elements, is the centerpiece of the hotel, which opened as the Royal Palms Inn in 1948. The name was derived from the 900 palms the Cookes imported from Egypt as part of the estate’s lush landscaping. All guest rooms come with a private patio or balcony and feature hand-stenciled wall designs and custom furnishings. In addition to the main house, the hotel features a variety of small houses, or casitas, with mountain views and patios. New York financier Delos Cooke undoubtedly would have agreed that his longing took him to Phoenix where he commissioned the building of a mansion in the grand Spanish colonial style.  A world traveler, Delos and his wife, Florence, filled their mansion with wondrous treasures from their travels around the world. After Cooke's untimely death in 1931, the home was sold to a series of private parties, who added various rooms, including an in-house chapel.  After World War II, a group of investors purchased the Cooke property with the intention of developing a first class resort.  A new era for the estate began. Named for the regal, towering trees lining each side of the entryway, the Royal Palms Inn opened to guests in the winter of 1948.  It became a destination of choice for discriminating travelers from around the world, including celebrities such as Groucho Marx and Helena Rubenstein. In 1995, local Arizona businessman Fred Unger purchased the landmark property, and went about the task of restoring Royal Palms to its original charm and elegance.  Today, after a multi-million dollar restoration, the preservation of this historic property has been assured.