JACKSON LAKE LODGE, GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING, designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood for John D. Rockefeller, Jr., 1955

All photographs by Christine Madrid, October 1999
View from the rear deck of the lodge toward Jackson Lake and the Grand Teton range. Moose and other native wildlife are often seen in the meadows below. The Park Service and popular press hailed the opening of the modernist lodge as "the first major post-war construction in any Federal parkland" (New York Times, 7 Aug 1955). At the opening ceremonies Conrad Wirth, Director of the National Park Service, referred to the Mission 66 program for infrastructure improvements to the parks (not yet announced to the general public) and proposed the new lodge as a model for similar projects nationwide.
The six-million dollar structure, designed by Gilbert Stanley Underwood and donated to the Park Service by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., contains three-hundred rooms. The hotel design centers around a two-story lounge with a sixty-foot high "picture window" facing the Grand Teton Mountain Range (above right).
View of the "mountain range" facade. The far left portion of the building contains the bar, at the center is the lobby, and to the right are a restaurant and guest rooms.

Grand Teton Park Index | Colter Bay VC | Moose VC | Jackson Lake Lodge p. 2