Across the circular drive from El Tovar’s veranda stands Hopi House, architect Mary Colter’s first building at Grand Canyon. It opened shortly before El Tovar in 1905.

Inspired by the Hopi village of Old Oraibi, Colter designed a rectangular masonry building of three stories, terraced to provide rooftop plazas where resident families could work and play. Outdoor plazas connect to each other via stone steps and rough-hewn wooden ladders. Stacked pottery chimneys ornament the building’s corners, and heavy log vigas protrude from the masonry walls.

Colter wanted visitors who stepped through the low doorway to feel as if they were entering another time and space, an effect enhanced by low lighting, log-and-brush ceilings, and roughly plastered walls. Pottery, blankets, and baskets were artfully displayed throughout the salesrooms. The building and displays have been modernized, but Native American art remains the focus at Hopi House.

Further east along the rim, Verkamp’s Curios operated in a large bungalow-style building, once the home of the Verkamp family. John Verkamp sold curios and Indian crafts from a tent for the Babbit Brothers before starting his own business in 1905. In 2008, Verkamp’s Curios ended its run as the longest family-owned business in the national park system. The Park Service acquired the 1906 building, but has not yet announced its fate.