by Parker Leavitt | The Republic
For more than a decade, the shuttered Mountain Shadows resort at the foot of Camelback Mountain was the Valley’s own “paradise lost,” a once-flourishing Eden fallen into development purgatory.
The opulence that made Paradise Valley’s Mountain Shadows a premium destination upon opening in 1959 gave way to years of blight after Host Marriott closed the resort in 2004. Boarded-up buildings became public eyesores, left to rot on some of the Valley’s most-coveted real estate.
What never vanished was the property’s front-row view of Camelback Mountain — perhaps metro Phoenix’s most-recognized landmark — to the south and Mummy Mountain to the north.