STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

It’s been known as the Ellsworth Inn since 1961. But on Thursday—64 years later—the former family home, bed and breakfast and LDS stake house became Herberger Hideaway in honor of a woman who has moved the needle on workforce housing in Hailey.

Jeanne Herberger and Hailey Mayor Martha Burke pulled back a white cloth covering the new steel Herberger Hideaway sign atop a pedestal of river rock in front of the former inn.

And a few minutes later Herberger undraped a cover on a large two-sided marker that offers a timeline documenting the former inn’s history, as well as a verbal history of the Craftsman-style building built in 1915.

Jeanne Herberger and Hailey Mayor Martha Burke pull off the canvas covering the sign as Sun valley City Administrator Jim Keating stands in for Mayor Peter Hendricks, who was attending a meeting in Boise.

“This fills my heart,” said Herberger, who has donated $4.5 million worth of matching contributions to raise money for the Herberger Hideaway and other workforce housing projects. “ARCH has more than 300 families on a waiting list for workforce housing, and the people in this community understand what ARCH is trying to accomplish.”

A timeline on one side of the monument describes how the building was built on two acres by James McDonald II, a wealthy young man from a prominent London family, for his new bride Beulah Lamb in 1915. In 1929 it was purchased by Dr. E.W. Fox, who met the medical needs of Hailey for 41 years, making long-distance house calls by what could be considered the forerunner of the snowmobile powered by an airplane engine.

The Hailey LDS Church purchased the building for a stake house in 1949, then sold it in 1961 to Maurice Ellsworth of Arizona, who used it as a family home for next 20 years. It had five other owners, who used it for a hunting lodge, a bed and breakfast and even a center for angel spirits, before it was purchased by the City of Sun Valley in 2023 and developed by ARCH Community Housing Trust in 2024.

When the historic property was listed for sale in 2023, real estate prices had skyrocketed and local businesses were closing because they could not hire staff who could afford local rents.

Jeanne Herberger claps as she sees one side of the historical marker outside the former Ellsworth Inn at 702 3rd Ave. S. in Hailey.

The City of Hailey was concerned that it would be purchased by a developer who would raze the building and build luxury homes or condos on the site and, so, asked the City of Sun Valley to be a financial partner with a shared goal of saving the inn and redeveloping the property for workforce housing, said Michelle Griffith, executive director of ARCH.

The two cities selected ARCH, a local not-for profit affordable housing developer, tasking it with saving the inn and building rental units affordable for the workforce. Tenants have already moved into the remodeled inn and a remodeled caretaker’s unit, and ARCH hopes to break ground for cottages on the property this summer.

When done the property will support 19 units, including seven 1-bedroom units, two 4-bedroom units and the rest, three-bedroom units.

Key to it all has been Jeanne Herberger, who has provided matching grants totaling $4.5 million in the past few years, helping ARCH build 50 homes for teachers, health care workers, firefighters and others.

Representatives from the cities of Hailey and Sun valley join Michelle Griffith and Jeanne Herberger in font of the new historical marker.

“So good to meet you. You are the magic woman,” said Hailey Mayor Martha Burke on Thursday as she met Herberger and talked about what a blessing the Herberger Hideaway is.

Jeanne and her late husband Gary were renowned business leaders and philanthropists who made Sun Valley their ski home during the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. Gary was one of the last architects to apprentice under Frank Lloyd Wright in 1958, and he not only finished Wright’s last project but founded a successful real estate development firm.

He and Jeanne spread their wealth around Phoenix, with contributions to Arizona State University’s School of Music, what became the Herberger Institute for Design and the Art and other endeavors funding research and innovation in design, digital culture, performing arts, film and art.

“I think we were instilled with the desire for philanthropy before we were born,” said Herberger, who with her husband grew up in Minnesota and moved to Arizona in 1967. “Our families taught us from an early age to give back.”

Debbie Lemmen accompanies Jeanne Herberger to the unveiling. The $2.6-million Herberger Hideaway project boasts six units of completed housing plus a former one-bedroom caretaker’s unit that was the first to be occupied.

Jeanne, who received a PhD at ASU’s Hugh Downs School of Human Communication, joined her husband in contributing to a myriad of causes, including the Phoenix Symphony and the Herberger Theatre Center, while founding Visionaries for a Vital Arizona Valley Leadership, the Arizona Women’s Forum and the Arizona Women’s Education and Employment, which moves people toward economic self-sufficiency.

She was one of only six honored as “Women Who Make a Difference” at an International Women’s Forum World Leadership Conference in 2023.

Herberger is perhaps most excited by the couple Gary K. Herberger Young Scholars Academy for academically gifted children, which they launched at ASU’s West Campus in 2011.

“We developed it for gifted children who at age 9 start high school and are in college by 13.  These are the bright minds of the future,” she said.

The Herbergers built a home in Sun Valley in 2017. And, as Jeanne spent more time here following Gary’s death, she looked around to discover what the most pressing need of the valley was. It was, she determined, affordable workforce housing.

The homes ARCH builds are for those who make between 80 percent and 140 percent of the median income. They make too much money to get federal housing assistance but too little to be able to buy homes without help given the valley’s high cost of living.

“Working with ARCH has absolutely been the joy of my life,” Herberger said. “I can’t believe his little organization with just four employees can do all they do.”

Among those in attendance at Thursday’s unveiling was Nancy Glick who designed the plaques. She was ecstatic how well the horse riders on the marker resembled a picture of Gary and Jeanne Herberger on their horses since she had known nothing about the picture earlier.

The Herbergers had 40 horses on their ranch in Greer, Ariz., Jeanne said.

Others included representatives of Peak Construction and architect Jay Cone.

Workers had to build a new fire staircase in back of the building, said Griffith. And the building had several coats of paint with the last coat receiving an additive that gives it two hours of fire protection.

Sun Valley City Administrator Jim Keating, who was standing in for Mayor Peter Hendricks, noted that the Ellsworth Inn project came to the forefront during his first week on the job.

“It’s an incredible project, and I’m sure it’s pleased Peter how well they’ve moved along,” he said. “And it’s the little things, too. I was on the Hailey Arts and Preservation Committee for eight years and we did a ton of research on historic properties. It turned out that Earl, the doctor, built the iconic barn by the aquatic center while living in this house.”

Jeanne Herberger has provided a matching $1 million grant for phase two, which is estimated to cost $5.6 million. To learn more, go to www.archbc.org.