Defending a Building: Jackson Lake Lodge

Written by Betsy Engle

While I could write a book on the topic of Jackson Lake Lodge (and believe me, I’ve come close), I’ve noticed one reoccurring theme in the history of the building: someone is always defending it. Or perhaps it’s better to say, someone is always attacking it.

From the beginning, critics were skeptical of the lodge. One of my favorite remarks came from Devereaux Butcher, a National Parks Association board member who in 1954 called the lodge, “the ugliest building in the park and monument system.” He continued in his rant to refer to the building as “Alcatraz.” In the 1950s it fell to the Rockefellers, who were responsible for the construction of the great lodge, and columnists such as Jack Goodman, who wrote extensively on the lodge for the New York Times, to defend the building, arguing that while it wasn’t explicitly rustic, it wasn’t bad either.

While a flurry of articles condemned the lodge when it opened in 1955, the attacks didn’t subside completely once the initial excitement died down. In 1973 in his history of Jackson Hole, Frank Calkins wrote that the Jackson Lake Lodge was “surely one of the ugliest buildings in Wyoming. Sh*t brown in color and as slab-sided as Menor’s outhouse, it looks like something the Nazis built to fortify their Siegfried Line.” Harsh words indeed!

But again the lodge prevailed. In 2002 the Jackson Lake Lodge was nominated to the National Register of Historic Places, quieting critics and ensuring its survival—which, at the base of the magnificent Tetons, was never really in question.

But critics are still unsympathetic to the building, which brings me to last week, when I was given the opportunity to defend the lodge I’m so biased-ly attached to.*

So no one said it was “ugly”, no one said it was “undeserving.” They just said it was different. “The Ahwahnee hotel is Underwood’s masterpiece. The Jackson Lake Lodge, well, it’s…different,” and, “Hard to believe the same architect built those magnificent rustic lodges and then this, isn’t it?” were the common reactions among our educated guests. But the Jackson Lake Lodge isn’t different. Well, not entirely.

In 1927 Gilbert Stanley Underwood was charged with constructing a lodge that harmonized with its surroundings. The result was the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite, with its vertical stone piers that mimic the stoic cliffs of the valley in which it sits. At the Jackson Lake Lodge twenty years later, Underwood was given the same task. He was to build a lodge that harmonized with the national park setting. The result of this challenge was a flat, low building that disappears into the landscape.

But it’s more than just the landscape of Grand Teton and Yosemite that is different: the buildings are very distinct in their appearance and impression. But they suit the same set of goals: keep park development to a minimum and construct buildings that harmonize with their surroundings. What the Park Service meant by “harmonize”, however, was what had changed between 1927 and 1955. In 1955, it no longer meant “complement the scenery”, but instead, “don’t intrude on the scenery.”

To criticize the Jackson Lake Lodge as too utilitarian, as Alcatraz or a Nazi bunker, is to overlook the detail and care that Underwood put into designing a lodge that harmonizes with its setting. It may not be constructed of log, but it is rustic enough in effect to be considered one of Underwood’s masterpieces, not just a “different” building associated with a great architect.




*I wrote my Master’s thesis on the Gilbert Stanley Underwood and the Jackson Lake Lodge in 2009.

See Christine Madrid French's comments on the preservation of modern architecture in the national parks at the National Trust Blog:
Modern Architecture in the National Parks: Living in Harmony

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