The Kennedys had Camelot … and John McCain had Cornville, Ariz.

The sleepy valley was the late senator’s refuge, where he built his home and hosted the events most important to him: Christmas, Thanksgiving, his daughter’s wedding.

McCain, who died Saturday at age 81, could escape the chaos of Washington, DC, and become just another “one of the regulars” in Cornville, a resident noted.

“I can’t think of another place in this country where a sitting US senator, with the prominence that Senator McCain has, can, without a security detail, roll into the coffee place, the different restaurants, and he’s one of the guys,” Cornville resident Jon Miller told The Arizona Republic.

One of McCain’s staple haunts was the Up the Creek Bistro Wine Bar, which he would visit sometimes in sweatpants and a ballcap.

His table was against a wood-framed window in a corner beside the piano, where the chef would sometimes bang out some of McCain’s favorite blues standards.

The last time he was there, “he was having a difficult time, but he was on his own,” recalled owner Mario Aguilar-Aello. “As he’s walking out the door, the whole restaurant is giving him a standing ovation.

“I’m looking around my bar, and there are people with tears in their eyes.”

Before Cornville, the POW and war hero lived most of his life without a steady home. He was born on a military base in Panama and spent his childhood bouncing around at more than 20 different schools.

When asked by strangers where he was from, McCain would reply, “all around.” He later spent decades in DC while also collecting residences in Phoenix and California.
When his second wife, Cindy McCain, first visited Cornville in 1983, she immediately made an offer on the Hidden Valley Ranch — and the family would spent the next 20 years transforming it into its retreat, buying up surrounding land, building guest houses on it and renovating its original cabin.

The McCains would drop in and out of the community as their children went to school in Phoenix and McCain worked in Washington.

When McCain once ran for president, he headquartered his campaign at the ranch — which Cornville residents dubbed the “Western White House.”

After he lost that bid, the baristas at his local Starbucks would continue to scribble “Sen. McCain” on his cup.

“He’ll pop in, and there’s probably been a dozen times that I’ve run into the senator there,” Miller said. “Always a handshake. Always a nice word.”

When the six-term senator was diagnosed with cancer, he retreated to the ranch, where friends and family came to visit.

“I think we’ll be very proud that we had a politician like him,” said Lema Nowicki, a Cornville business-owner, who met McCain seven years ago.

“Till the bitter end he was a fighter, fighter his whole life,” she said. “People will be pretty sad to not have him as part of the community anymore.”

Following his death, residents put up a heartwarming sign in tribute to McCain outside his ranch.

“Sen. McCain. Thank you for your service” it read.