A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Historic Clifton Hotel

Off a desert highway more infamous than most, nestles a small town with a population of 3,700 — welcome to Clifton, Arizona. The story of its past is a common one in these parts of the Southwest: Copper deposits spurred a population boom, the claims dried up, folks moved on. Yet Clifton persevered.

“It still has kind of a Wild West feel to me,” says Karen Frye, co-owner of the restored Clifton Hotel. “[Clifton’s] unspoiled, and you really feel the history when you’re there.”

It’s what drew Karen and her husband Matt to visit the tiny Eastern Arizona town more than five years ago for a vacation that would change their lives.

A weekend getaway turns into a years-long project

“Some people rescue dogs; some people rescue old houses. Well, we do both,” Karen jokes, explaining her and Matt’s interest in home restoration.

When the couple stopped in Clifton one weekend, they intended only to relax and enjoy the desert views. Still, they accepted a local shop owner’s offer to show them around town. The shop owner highlighted available properties, and at each place, Karen and Matt began to envision what it could become before talking themselves out of it.

Weeks later, Karen, a self-professed “Zillow fanatic,” found herself browsing property listings when she saw it — the Clifton Hotel, or what was left of it.

Hotel guests from cowboys to bikers to spirited ghosts

Opened in the late 1800s, the 24-room Clifton Hotel once served as a rest stop for cowboys traveling the Coronado Trail and hopeful miners seeking fortunes. Throughout the town’s ups and downs, the hotel endured. That is, until a flood in 1983 buried the property under six feet of silt from the nearby San Francisco River, forcing it to shutter. There it sat, abandoned, until one day in 2017 when a certain “Zillow fanatic” came across its listing.

“Neither of us had any experience with [restoring or owning a hotel] whatsoever,” Karen admits.

Despite adding modern amenities and flourishes, “we really wanted it to look like it might have looked back in the 1800s: big, bold wallpaper and a Victorian design with high ceilings.”

Now reopened, the Clifton Hotel sports a look best described as polished antique. It’s vintage but not musty. The six studio rooms (each with a kitchenette) and two suites feature exposed brick, white wainscoting and wallpaper in shades of cream with gold patterns resembling filigree molding.

The hotel also boasts a shaded courtyard, a common area for relaxing and a full-service bar.

“The manager [and chef] serves one entrée a night. It’s not a big kitchen, but she has her recipes, and she knows what the guests like,” Karen says.

And like it they do.

Since opening, the hotel has gained a devoted following among road trippers and bikers traveling along U.S. Route 191, formerly known as the Devil’s Highway or Route 666. And what of the ghosts? Karen remains skeptical of the Clifton Hotel’s haunted claims but admits she’s experienced things she can’t explain.

“I used to smell cigar smoke in the room that we call the parlor. And nobody was in the hotel; there was no reason for it to smell,” Karen recalls. Other times, “I would smell perfume [near the bar’s] restrooms. There was a woman who danced at the hotel, and she was murdered by her boyfriend on the spot where the restrooms now occupy.”

Ghosts or not, the Clifton Hotel — and Karen and Matt’s loving restoration of it — stand as testament to the perseverance of the town itself. Not to mention, it’s a great place to spend a long weekend.