No longer in vogue, but centrally located, the hotel remained prominent for years, and hosted conferences, business meetings, and vacationers.

[5] Conceived anew by the architectural firm Allen+Philp, a seven-story tower with guest rooms and condominiums was built above the lobby, in the spirit of Varney's proposal.

[6] The two established a core of investors to build a new hotel on an 8.86-acre (3.59 ha) site in Scottsdale and to design it, they hired Edward L. Varney, one of the most prominent local architects of the time.

[3] Varney set the hotel around a central pool lounge and used extended horizontal lines in the wings where rooms included air conditioning for year-round operation, a first for Scottsdale.

[7] A curving porte-cochere with abstract Southwestern designs in cast concrete opened onto a high-ceiling lobby which gave guests a "sense of arrival",[4] a feature often used by Frank Lloyd Wright.

Some of the baseball players, coaches, and managers taking part in the spring training Cactus League of Arizona stayed at the hotel, including Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Leo Durocher, the latter requesting Room 103 every time he visited, for its nearness to the lobby.

[10] Chicago-based sports reporter Dave Hoekstra writes that he and his "Bleacher Bum" colleagues did not have enough money to stay under the same roof as the baseball players they were watching, and instead crowded into rooms at the nearby Safari Hotel.

[13] With the Valley Ho an immediate financial success, in 1958 Varney designed and built two more wings of guest rooms to the northwest of the original complex.

[17] To save it from demolition, business partners Scott Lyon and Bill Nassikas[10] of Westroc Hotels & Resorts bought the property and undertook an extensive renovation and building addition that eventually cost $80M.

[10] The local Scottsdale architectural firm Allen+Philp accepted the task of renovation, and in researching the hotel's history, they found that in the 1950s, Varney had originally intended a tower of guest rooms to rise above the central lobby, a feature that was not built at the time.

"[14] Interior designer Cole-Martinez carefully updated the decorations and furnishings with "one foot firmly in the present with subtle salutes to the past".

[7] The hotel operates one restaurant and has a wide selection of guest rooms and suites in addition to over 30[10] luxury condominiums for permanent residents.

[20] In a nod to Mad Men, the widely acclaimed television series that takes place largely during the Valley Ho's original heyday, one TripAdvisor reviewer noted: "Don Draper would approve.

"[21] Centrally placed off the main lobby, ZuZu is a restaurant that offers inventive American food and craft cocktails, under the direction of Executive Chef Russell LaCasce.

[14] Varney's use of masonry, cast and poured concrete, natural stone, and wide expanses of glass make for a close connection between the building and its environment.

[7] Rooms in the two adjacent wings added in the late 1950s are unusual, and remarkably forward-thinking even by mid-century design standards, for their high nine-foot-ceilings.

Walls partitioning the central lobby were torn down to open up Varney's intended connection between the indoor and outdoor public spaces.

The tour is focused on the hotel's design and Hollywood past, and includes a look inside some of the restored rooms, a walk around the grounds, and a stop at the Sky Line Rooftop for wonderful views of Phoenix and Scottsdale.