Westward Ho (Phoenix)

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The Westward Ho, Phoenix, Arizona

Hotel Westward Ho
U.S. National Register of Historic Places

Location:	Phoenix, Arizona
Coordinates:	33°27′17.9″N 112°4′25.82″W / 33.454972, -112.0738389Coordinates: 33°27′17.9″N 112°4′25.82″W / 33.454972, -112.0738389
Built/Founded:	1927
Architect:	Lake,H. Rafael; Dorr,Louis L.
Architectural style(s):	Mission/Spanish Revival, Other
Added to NRHP:	February 19, 1982
NRHP Reference#:	82002082^[1]
MPS:	Phoenix Commercial MRA (AD)
Governing body:	Private

Westward Ho is a skyscraper located at 618 North Central Avenue in Phoenix, Arizona, formerly occupied by a hotel of the same name. When completed in 1927, the 208-foot (63 m) hotel was the tallest building in Arizona, a title it held until 1960.

The Westward Ho was one of the city's premier luxury hotels until it closed in 1979. In 1981, the sixteen-story building was converted to housing for senior citizens, and the building was thoroughly remodeled between 2003 and 2004 at a cost of over $8 million USD.

Contrary to popular belief, the Westward Ho does not appear in the opening sequence of Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho. In the original, the camera zooms in on the downtown Hotel Jefferson, which still stands, although in modified form. In the Gus Van Sant 1998 remake of Psycho, the camera zooms into a window on the 8th floor of the Westward Ho. But when Marion Crane (Anne Heche) leaves the room, the number on the door is 514.

Westward Ho currently supports a large radio transmitter antenna, mounted asymmetrically, which reaches a height more than twice that of the building itself. The antenna was used by KPHO-TV from its 1949 sign-on until 1960 when KPHO moved its transmitter to South Mountain.^[2]