Photos taken November 2008 unless noted.
The John Muir Lodge at Grant Grove Village:
The ground floor hallway of the John Muir Lodge is lined with historic photos of Grant Grove Village. It's the closest thing to a historic museum in Grant Grove Village. If you enjoy historical photos it is worth 15 minutes to walk over to the Lodge for a look. When you enter the lobby the hall is to the right of the registration desk past the restrooms.
The John Muir Lodge. If you are looking for something more modern in the way of guest rooms, this is the John Muir Lodge, built in 1998. (Not really historic, but I'm including it FYI.) The exterior is built in a mountain style, with large exposed wood beams, and log rails to give it a touch of the National Park Rustic style. It is very well done and a nice facility, typical of a standard 2-3 star hotel. Rooms have either 2 queen beds or a king bed and a sofa. All the rooms have private baths, heat, carpeting, coffee makers, and fans for cooling. Combo shower/baths. No air conditioning, but it cools down rapidly at night here most of the time, and the room windows open to let in the mountain air. The building has a large lobby and 3 porches with rocking chairs.
The architects who designed this building did an excellent job. The timber bracing with iron straps on the porch isn't a historic fit with the historic buildings in the Village, but it looks good and fits the rustic design style. Note that unlike the designers of the new Meadow Camp bath house they included outlookers with diagonal braces like those found on all the other historic buildings in the Village. (Look for the outlookers and braces at the upper corners where the walls meet.) For me, the outlookers are a signature feature of the buildings here and should be included if at all possible. The vertical wood siding duplicates that found on many of the historic buildings, the shingle walls under the gables also match the historic buildings nearby in the Lodge area. It's not going to become a classic structure, but still, they could have done a lot worse. Good job!!!
To the left of this photo, out of view, are several other historic buildings that are used for concession support facilities. The building housing the concession housekeeping offices was built in 1923. The warehouse building was built in 1935. Two cabins used for housing were built in 1929, both have substantial additions that make the original structure hard to identify. I'll take photos of them next time I'm up there.
Well, this is the end of our photo tour of Grant Grove Village. Thanks for joining me, I've had a good time putting this little tour together. If you get the impression that Grant Grove is someplace that is very special for me, you are right! If you still want to see more, there are a lot more photos of the Village, the historic cabins, and the John Muir Lodge on the next page, generally with less detailed descriptions. Since I visit here often I periodically add more photos.
The next page has lots of photos and may load slowly!
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