Places to stay in Jerome

Jerome Grand Hotel, 200 Hill Street, sits above the town on Cleopatra Hill and is the building you can see from the valley floor twenty miles away. It was built as the United Verde Hospital and converted, which is the source of both its layout and the ghost stories it is famous for. The view from it runs the length of the valley to the Mogollon Rim.

Mile High Inn is the other. That sentence is close to everything our record holds, and rather than dress that up, this page says so: we have the name and the town and little else. Its own page is the place to look.

Staying in Jerome rather than visiting it

Jerome empties in the evening. The day visitors drive back down the switchbacks, the shops shut, and a town of four hundred and fifty people on a hillside becomes very quiet indeed. People who stay overnight tend to say that is the point.

It also solves the drive. The SR-89A switchbacks are tight, unlit and have a long drop on the outer edge, and they are the same road whether you have had a glass of wine or not. If your evening involves the two bars on Main Street, staying up here is the answer rather than the indulgence.

Practicalities of a town on a slope

Jerome is built on a 30-degree hillside and the streets are stacked on top of each other. Almost nothing here is step-free, including getting from a car park to a front door, and anybody with limited mobility should ask specific questions before booking rather than assume.

Parking is $5 for the day in the paid lots, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a free lot at the 300 Level on Perkinsville Road and a shuttle on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays. Ask where guests are meant to park; it is not obvious and it is not always next to the building.

Both places are small. If neither has room, Clarkdale is fifteen minutes down the hill and Cottonwood twenty-five, both with more choice and both a good deal flatter.