Real Arizona Blog

Opportunity brought many people to Arizona as this desert land was colonized by peoples from Spain, Mexico and then eastern North America. They came for mining, ranching and agricultural enterprise and what they brought with each of them were methodologies to build their shelter.

Today we are fortunate to have a history and be able to witness the different ways people before us built their homes. We have such an advantage to learn from and maybe even work with "masters" who have become specialized in Desert Architecture.

An early contemporary who favored the desert environment for living and created living structures was Frank Lloyd Wright. I have been a member of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation for a few years and have the goal of someday visiting all of the restored homes that are open to the public. So far, I have visited and love his monumental work at Taliesin West in Scottsdale. The integration of indoor and outdoor space creates an "environmental experience" of living within the desert in Arizona. Vernon Swaback is interviewed for a show on Arizona PBS and gives a short but insightful look at the making of Wright's Taliesin West.

 You can take a tour literally by clicking on this link to Great Buildings.com and get a preview of this wonderful campus of structures. It is a nice site but seems only to have very well know structures and architects represented, so you won't find Will Bruder or Rick Joy.

Looking toward another great month of mixed indoor and outdoor living in the Upper Sonoran desert has me reading about outdoor spaces, landscape design and outdoor rooms. This concept of integration of indoor and outdoor space has been in my thoughts lately as I start working toward designing such space at my home on the Salero Ranch.

Tucson Home integration of backyard oasis with porches off home and casita where French doors bring "outside in"

Actually since we built our home and moved in 2000 we have "dragged our feet" in getting the "landscaping done", and now I am so glad we waited. Once you have "lived with a place" for a while, you come to see it in a different light, quite literally. I have watched the seasons change, felt the warmth of the sunny south exposure and watched as the ocotillos flourish on that side of the home and noted the cool to cold north side of the house where the soil stays damp and shade predominates. This living with your home for a time before finishing (in the traditional sense) it doesn't fit the typical model for construction scheduling and timing move-in for new homes because there are both design/build packages and packaged expectations on the part of the owners. If your plans will allow for it, you will save 2 things by waiting to finish your home until later. First you will save money because you will have time to get designs and bids done in a more leisurely manner. Second, you will save time in what it might take to re-do or customise the already executed landscape plan that once lived with, is not actually what you would have wanted.

So as I have been reading I came across Steve Martino & Associates whose Landscape Architecture firm received the ASLA Professional Design award in 2006 for RESIDENTIAL DESIGN AWARD OF EXCELLENCE. This remodel of a home in Paradise Valley Arizona was clearly what the type of example I had been looking for to provide me with some inspiration for my own project.

Here is a link to an article that will be in my May Newsletter on Outdoor Rooms. It gives some perspective on how popular the trend is becoming as we spend more time around home as a nation. What is not mentioned that I feel is an additional reward, is that the assessor typically looks at "heated & cooled" areas to assess a homes square footage (covered porches are assessed but not at the same rate as heated living space). This is a way to not only enjoy the outdoors, but possibly save on real estate taxes as well since you would be adding "outdoor living space" vs "indoor living space".

Here is one vendor with packaged models for outdoor rooms. Fire Stone Outdoor Great Rooms.

The Tubac Real Estate event of the week is the Tubac Open House Tour sponsored some prominent Tubac area Realtors. The 10 homes that are open for view include homes that are new and newer to some classic Tubac Adobes. The prices range from $415,000 to $1,800,00 so make the effort to come to Tubac on Saturday April 21 from noon to 4 PM an see some VERY NICE homes.

Maps for the open house tour are available at each home and at Long Realty Tubac.

Mi Sueno Ranch is one of the Classic Adobe homes to see Saturday

Breezes vs Windy. It is an age old concern of many of us. I called a neighbor at the Salero Ranch who had been down from Phoenix for our annual Property Owners Association meeting on Saturday last and she told me she had left early for her return drive because of the windy conditions. If I had ever thought of that as being a factor for a drive I was going to make, I must have forgotten it. But she was right, Sunday was very windy at the ranch and she had a good point, why fight it?

When it comes to home design, there are ways to work with the indoor & outdoor space and professional designers & architects know how to gain the advantage when designing a project. It's not only wind but here in Arizona, it's the sun and solar orientation and sun angle through out the day that complicates a design. True to Arizona, as much time is spent in the outdoor spaces as indoors and this calls for some creative thinking.

An article in Sunset Magazine is linked here The meeting of indoors and out and it goes into the thoughts of a well respected Tucson Architect Paul Weiner. He has been working the outdoors in for many years with architecture around Tucson and runs his Design Build Collaborative company specializing in sustainable materials and architecture. His designs look to me both aged and ageless. There are few homes that blend in so well as Paul's designs do here in Southern Arizona.

I guess we can't "control" the weather, at least not to our liking, but we can design for its inevitability in the desert environment. Much of what is built today is not well thought out but it certainly becomes a Living Home if it is and is thought out creatively.

Let me know what your thoughts and experiences are with "natural architecture".

LivingHomes are modern well thought out alternatives to custom home building & design. While deemed as a "pre-fab" type of construction, these homes are not what you would expect.. they are geared toward sustainable building practices. LivingHomes are really top drawer types of projects with prices from $500K to over $1m, but for that you get a modern designed home by either Ray Kappe or David Hertz who are well-known architects from California. Personally I think the 2 models done by Kappe are more appealing for rural living as they have a chance of finding a site to "blend in" with... still it might be tough to get it into the Desert SW landscape and not look too "out there"

When we are facing a home building project that is going to be both expensive and of what seems like unending duration this modern "pre-fab" alternative looks appealing and IS appealing. Costs are currently higher than Steve Glen founder and CEO of LivingHomes would like but as orders and production ramp up, he says the homes should come down in price. Here is a link to an post in Land+Living with comments that are interesting. I'm still thinking that in very open country as we have in Southern Arizona, the height will make it hard to blend the design into the landscape.

Clearing Storm over the Catalina Mtns March 2006

© RealArizona

How do we want to live? Well, this blog is my way of demonstrating how many of us would answer this question. Many of my Real Estate clients purchase property with the hope that it will bring with it a desired lifestyle… and most times it does.

So— I begin this web log with a theme of “home on the range”. It will touch on both home & range with posts about land forms & water issues, home site selection, home & landscape design, residential building and architectural planning. Oh—and as regional or local news about real estate, land development or good & bad building practices come up, I’ll post on these subjects as well.

None of this will work without your thoughts, experiences and comments, so please feel free to get involved with this and share some knowledge.

I sometimes forget what it was like to live in the city.  That was a lifetime ago, it often seems, and back then I started each day with a copy of the daily news. 

These days my news is still delivered to my doorstep every morning, but now it comes in the form of a beautiful sunrise, always delivered on time, and the news is always good.