I recently read a fascinating profile of a man named David Barnett, who’s collecting and preserving New York City’s marquees of yore for his New York Sign Museum. They’re elaborate, clanky and delicate old things; many require scissor lifts and manpower to make the journey to their new home.
What’s taking their place? Slick and familiar branding — easy on the eyes, but usually lacking in substance, courage or frivolity. As someone who routinely bounces around the boroughs, it’s difficult for me to argue with the truth in writer Laura Preston’s analysis: “Storefronts are [now] designed by committee. [New signs] arrive with glossy acrylic letterforms and antiseptic light.”
This isn’t just happening in New York. The world’s corners are collapsing in deference to content-conscious algorithms. It’s getting harder to tell places apart — a coffee shop in Austin could be a coffee shop in Copenhagen — and harder to know a place’s story, its why for existing. On the flip side — those rare, refreshing instances where you find a place that knows and cherishes both…say, a boutique lodge in Jackson, Wyoming — it feels like you’ve slipped through a trapdoor to a different time.
Welcome to The Rusty Parrot
If you want to know the story behind the name The Rusty Parrot Lodge and Spa, you’ll just have to come to The Rusty Parrot Lodge and Spa. That’s the rule. I got to hear the yarn while standing with Ron Harrison, the man who opened the hotel in 1990, and his son, Brandon, who now oversees it as general manager. What I can divulge, is that there’s an actual rusty parrot in the lobby. It’s been there since the beginning, and even survived the property’s calamitous fire in the fall of 2019.
Five years later, that bird could be a rusty phoenix. After burning down, and suffering through years of COVID complications, the Downtown Jackson institution has finally made its triumphant return; bookings are back up and running. Over a few days at the property in mid-July, old regulars were walking in with reservations at Wild Sage, the Rusty Parrot’s on-campus restaurant, while new faces popped in for guided facials (and massages) at the expanded spa.
In the early 1990s, the Rusty Parrot helped pioneer the zip code’s luxury revolution; these days, the boutique’s role is less obvious — it seems to straddle the line between the town’s cowboy past and its corporate present. Still, it manages to do so with surprising grace and respect for locals and visitors alike, which I’d attribute to its family-run sensibility.
The algorithm is simply harder to find within its halls. Instead, there are fresh-baked cookies offered in the second-floor library each afternoon, fluffy bears that seem to move around one’s guest room each time the room attendants stop by, and frontier poems left on nightstands (I particularly enjoyed “You’ll Make a Cowboy Yet.”) The walls’ dazzling collection of Western artwork is from Ron Harrison’s private collection. Everything’s run perfectly well around here…but there’s a screw loose. That’s the point.
I think Hugo Goodwin, the executive chef at Wild Sage (who cut his teeth at il Buco), said it best when explaining why he chose to accept his new position in Jackson: “[The Harrison family] spoke the legend of the Parrot.” At that point, having stayed there for a few days, I knew what he meant.
What to Expect
My plane arrives at the Jackson Hole Airport on a Sunday at noon. It’s the only airport in the country that rests within a national park, and it features the most astonishing approach I’ve ever seen. (I’m lucky enough to have a window seat, on the right side, facing the Tetons: jagged and jaw-dropping.)
From the airport parking lot to the porte-cochère of the Rusty Parrot is about a 25-minute journey, tops, but I’m in no particular rush: to the left of I-191 are the grasslands of the National Elk Refuge, home to a herd of thousands, and one of the most important wildlife sanctuaries in the country.
Our driver, Rob, tells us how each spring, the elk shed their antlers and youth scouts scour the grounds, collecting them and bringing them to auction. Their prize is heavy and expensive — but 75% of the proceeds are pumped right back into the refuge. Antlers are as much a physical motif in Jackson as the Bucking Horse and Rider and the American bison. They comprise various arches throughout the town of Jackson…and even form the hilts of specialty knives in area shops.
The hotel is nestled up against a creek (which is nestled up against a butte) on the western side of town. Rusty Parrot 2.0 makes maximum use of its outdoor environs, with strategic terraces hugging many of the lodge’s suites, and a public perch (literally called The Perch), ideal for resting your bones while catching a sunset. There’s more outdoor space in the backyard, too, which was a parking lot before the rebuild. Now, the valet service stores autos in a parking garage below the hotel.
I have two memorable moments out in that backyard: first, after my very first facial (a 60-minute treatment mixing muds, moisturizer and massage), a bit of time to chat life and career with some other writers, while sipping strawberry water. And later — ironically also featuring strawberries — sipping “sloshies” in the new hot tub. I fetch mine via a spontaneous bike ride to Creekside Market and Deli, which has a self-pour section in its walk-in beer fridge. The sloshie is a beloved Jackson tradition, a violent mixture of ice, sugar and liquor. I fill a Rusty Parrot-branded water bottle with the strawberry margarita tequila mix. Not a bad way to relax after a double-feature of horseback riding and whitewater rafting.
Meanwhile: Chef Goodwin’s food at Wild Sage is worth the trip alone. The open kitchen is visible from the second you enter the Rusty Parrot’s lobby — a design choice meant to convey the hotel’s affinity for breaking bread (in this case some of the best focaccia I’ve ever had). The 10-person team is hard at work behind that counter on steaks, crab cakes, wild rice, yellowtail crudo, swordfish. The menu manages to marry the Montreal-born chef’s training in classical Provençal kitchens, his long tenure in New York City and his eager experimentation with northern Rockies ingredients.
He also, as it were, happens to be the man; Chef Goodwin takes time out of his day after a 14-hour shift (and with a little one at home) to sit with us, discuss his background and his dreams for the menu at Wild Sage. I wish I could share specifics, but at this point it’s getting late…and the Wild Sage’s sommelier is too good at her job.
Around Town…and the Tetons
Jackson locals tend to overrate difficulty of walking around — I wonder if this has something to do with frigid winters spent lugging around ski equipment. At any rate, you do not need a car to get into the main thoroughfare for a bite, beer or poke around. The Rusty Parrot is well-positioned. (There’s even a park near the property, with a lively pickleball scene — because nowhere on this earth, no matter how remote, is immune from pickle.)
In town, I get a chance to eat at Hatch Taqueria (excellent Mexican cuisine, ideal lunch spot), Trio American Bistro (that snap pea risotto…get out of town) and Local Restaurant Bar (where I wash down a trout sandwich with a Montucky Cold Snack). I also pop in for an ale at The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, the iconic Jackson saloon, which has no doubt been Instagrammed to death…but very much still has its fastball. The barstools are horse saddles, and live music starts at 8:30. What’s not to like?
Over four days in Jackson, I manage to ride a horse named Commander at Turpin Meadow Ranch, hike Snow King Mountain and go on a rafting adventure with Jackson Hole Whitewater, down the Snake River, which is a Class III river. Our river guide, Sam, likes to call faster sections of the rapids “spooky,” and lets us improvise throughout the trip: there are opportunities for swims in the icy water during quieter periods, and ill-fated attempts at “riding the bull” through legit rapids (e.g. one sits on the front of the tube and clings to the ropes for dear life, like a stuffed animal on the front grill of an 18-wheeler).
A sighting of two bald eagles, roosting regally on a riverbank tree, takes the cake for my favorite wildlife sighting while in the area. But there are many other contenders to choose from: elk, bison, even a rogue badger. No bears, though. They’re way up in the mountains this time of year, snacking on moths. Great source of protein.
One of my most surreal moments in Jackson arrives 1,500 feet above it, at the Snow King Observatory & Planetarium. With an assist from the gondola’s night-shift crew, our crew heads up the ski mountain to meet astronomer Joe Zator, and get a tour of the brand-new facility, which is the happy (and very, very expensive) brainchild of billionaire businessman — and Snow King executive — Max C. Chapman.
An amateur rocketeer, Chapman has installed one of the world’s best telescopes at the new collective, and poached astrophysicists from academia. Zator shows us photos he’s taken of M42 The Orion Nebula…and clues us into another big development at the facility: a new Murphy bed, which the scientists can use when necessary. (As they don’t fire up the telescope until well after moonrise, there are some late nights. One time, Zator snowboarded back down the mountain in the middle of the night. Dad stuff.)
Unlike many other observatories — reclusive and scholastic — the Snow King Observatory endeavors to be a mainstay on the Jackson tourist circuit, with plans to host concerts on its grassy valley view outside the facility. A mountaintop restaurant is on the way as well. Will these developments rankle locals? Of course they will. There was worry when a zipline was installed nearly a decade ago. Still, it’s gratifying to find the tenderness in a zip code like this — to find the traditions that have persisted — even as some of the town’s older marquees are taken down and carried away.
Some signs, after all, have been triumphantly put back up. I’m touched on my final day to learn why the Rusty Parrot’s cookies are baked so faithfully each day, and arranged on a platter the library down the hall from my room. Brandon, the general manager, lived here as a teenager. There was always just enough time in between coming from school and rushing off to ski practice to wolf a few home-baked cookies at the hotel bar.
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