What is Senna House?
It’s Old Town’s grown-up hotel, on a corner with a lot of history. Senna House Hotel Scottsdale opened on December 15, 2021, at 75th Street and Camelback Road, with 169 rooms on six floors. It’s part of Hilton’s Curio Collection, which lets independently designed hotels keep their own names and personalities while using Hilton’s reservations and loyalty program. The name comes from the senna, a Sonoran Desert wildflower.
The design is desert modern: architecture by Nelsen Partners, interiors by Studio 11 and House of Form, and living walls of succulents. The Sonora Swim Club pool deck and its bar look out over Camelback Road toward Camelback Mountain. The hotel’s restaurant is a big draw. CALA, which opened in 2022, is the coastal-Mediterranean restaurant of Beau MacMillan, who spent two decades running elements at Sanctuary.
The land has its own story. For 38 years this was Don & Charlie’s, Don Carson’s Chicago-style chophouse, its walls covered in signed baseballs, bats and jerseys. Every March during spring training, players, managers and broadcasters ate there. It closed in April 2019, the building came down, and Senna House went up in its place.
It’s for couples and friend groups who want to be near the Entertainment District and Fashion Square but in a calmer, more polished hotel. Party groups can do well here too, though the W down the street is the dedicated pool-party option. Anyone who wants golf, big grounds or a spa should look to the resort corridor instead.
How to do Senna House right
Make CALA part of the plan. The restaurant is one of the best reasons to stay. Book ahead for weekends in high season (roughly October through May) and arrive early for a drink at the bar. Staying in the hotel means no Old Town parking hunt on your big dinner night.
Use the pool deck at the right time. The Sonora Swim Club is at its best in the morning and late afternoon, when the light is on Camelback Mountain. The hotel has run Wellness Sundays with private cabanas, so ask what’s on during your stay.
Choose a suite if you’ll spend time in the room. The Winfield Suites have about 570 square feet and views over Old Town. The Pinnacle Suites have about 730 square feet, with a separate parlor, a private bedroom and mountain views. Both are a big step up from a standard room for a long weekend.
Walk both directions. The Stetson Drive bars and the nightlife district are a few minutes south and west. Fashion Square is about half a mile west along Camelback. The Arizona Canal path and the Waterfront are a short walk beyond the mall.
Spring training. Scottsdale Stadium is a little under a mile south, an easy walk on a March afternoon, which seems fitting on Don & Charlie’s old ground.
Bring the dog. The hotel has pet-friendly rooms. Ask about the fee when you book.
From Don & Charlie’s to Curio
For almost four decades, the corner of 75th Street and Camelback was one of the best-known addresses in spring training. Don Carson, a Chicago restaurateur, opened Don & Charlie’s there in 1981 and served Chicago chophouse food: ribs, steaks and chopped liver. Visiting players signed balls and bats for Carson, and the collection grew until it covered the walls. As the Cactus League grew and the Giants settled in at Scottsdale Stadium, the dining room became baseball’s unofficial Scottsdale clubhouse. Every March, Hall of Famers, broadcasters and front-office executives ate there.
Don & Charlie’s closed on April 10, 2019. National sports media covered the closing like the end of a franchise. Carson sold the land, the building was demolished, and the memorabilia was dispersed. Phoenix-based Opwest Partners, led by managing principal Tyler Kent, won approval for a hotel and built it with Argosy Real Estate Partners.
What they built was a sign of a new period in Old Town. The W Scottsdale had opened a few blocks west in 2008, and after that no new hotel opened in the Entertainment District for thirteen years. The Canopy by Hilton broke Old Town’s drought in October 2020 over on Marshall Way. Senna House followed fourteen months later, the first new hotel in the bar district since the W. It was billed as Arizona’s first hotel built from the ground up for a soft brand, the industry term for collections like Curio that keep a hotel’s own identity under a big chain’s reservation system.
The restaurant deal made the hotel a dining destination. Beau MacMillan, the Iron Chef veteran who had made elements at Sanctuary one of the Valley’s best-known restaurants over two decades, opened CALA in the hotel in 2022 with the Clive Collective hospitality group. It was his first major restaurant after leaving Sanctuary, and it gave the hotel a dining room locals book for its own sake.
The steakhouse and its memorabilia are gone. But a hotel where Old Town now gathers for dinner and drinks continues, in its own way, what the corner was known for.