
The dining room at the Ahwahnee Hotel.

The dining room at the Ahwahnee Hotel.
Interior designer Max Humphrey brings the great outdoors in with his new coffee table book, Lodge: An Indoorsy Tour of America’s National Parks. “I’ve always loved our national parks and wanted to make a book that did justice to the historic lodges—something lodge-y, not stodgy,” says the Portland, Oregon-based author. “They are timeless and fresh, and I wanted to capture that.”
At the Ahwahnee, one of 10 destinations highlighted, which dates back to 1927, Northern California artist Robert Boardman Howard painted the linen-covered walls with local fauna; the dining room boasts a soaring 34-foot-high wood-beamed ceiling; and the stained-glass panels are the work of Jeannette Dyer Spencer, a longtime San Franciscan who studied at the École du Louvre.
“It’s what you picture if you close your eyes and dream about what a historic lodge should look and feel like,” observes Humphrey. “From the drive in, past Half Dome and Yosemite Falls, to the granite exterior and then the Art Deco-meets-Arts and Crafts lodge vibe inside the hotel, it’s the full package.”