If this were any city other than Phoenix, Sunnyslope would already be our Beverly Hills. Instead, this sleeping beauty — with its gorgeous mountain terrain, its dazzling views of downtown, its proximity to freeways, resorts, and the Central Corridor — has been dogged for decades by a lousy reputation that evolved from its days as the original Tent City, back when it was a lowly convalescent camp where the sick and dying came to soak up the sun.

Founded a century ago by an architect who fell for its unique skyline and klieg-lit, hilly terrain, Sunnyslope has been kept in a continuous holding pattern by that crummy rep. It’s maintained its place as a community on the brink of significance, a place of great paradox. Its handsome, hilly landscape — which stretches from 16th Street to 19th Avenue, between Northern and Cactus Roads — has long been populated by drug dealers and hookers, undesirables whose derelict homes rest in the shadow of million-dollar hillside housing. It’s a community that’s often mistaken for a town; one that’s been home to both one of the city’s best-regarded high schools and its highest concentration of crime.

And though developers have been busy building stadiums and relocating college campuses and renovating fallen neighborhoods all over town, the denizens of Sunnyslope have been quietly rebuilding their community, one street at a time. It’s an eccentric, grass-roots effort unlike any other in the Valley, one born of necessity by this overlooked, redheaded stepchild of a borough, and funded by a corporate benefactor — a hospital, no less — that owes its very existence to Sunnyslope.

So wrote Robert Pela last year in Sunnyslopetopia, his New Times article celebrating Sunnyslope.

In the article, he interviews “the mayor of Sunnyslope” Mike Nielsen, interior designer and gallery owner, whose home you can tour this week during the Third Annual Sunnyslope Home Tour.

Here you’ll see a short history of distinguished building in Phoenix: two homes from the 1920′s, including the renovated Bohn Home — an adobe home built as a labor of love during 1928; a Mid-Century Modern ranch; and two modern homes. In addition to Nielsen’s home, the distinctive Young residence will be on display.

Mr. Young, an architect with the Woolsey Studio designed the home for his personal use. He chose Sunnyslope as the site of his home because of its magnificent views right in the city and its tolerance for creative design. No McMansions here!

When? Saturday and Sunday, November 15 & 16
Time? 9 AM to 3:30 PM. Each tour lasts approximately 90 minutes.
Where? Guided tour buses leave every half hour from Sunnyslope Historical Society, 737 E Hatcher Rd
Cost? $35 per person, benefitting the non-profit Sunnyslope Historical Society Museum. Tickets must be purchased in advance by cash or check.

Travel and Leisure Magazine is holding its annual online survey for America’s Favorite Cities. Only twenty-five cities are listed to chose from. Between us, Greg and I have lived in five of these. My own hometown, Cleveland, isn’t in the running. Nor is the closest big town to where Greg grew up, Indianapolis. But he was raised in Danville, and Chicago is the nearest big Illinois city to where he grew up.

Last year, the only single-digit ranks that visitors gave Phoenix were a 9 for Weather (obviously those visitors weren’t here in March), an 8 in Shopping for Home Design, and a 6 for Relaxing Retreat. Number One for Relaxing Retreat last year went to Santa Fe. Well, apparently those voters weren’t in Santa Fe in August for Indian Market. Now really, just what is so relaxing about shopping, dining, gallery/museum hopping and Opera 24/7?

Anyway, that’s what visitors thought about Phoenix. We natives have a pretty similar point of view. Last year we ranked Phoenix in the top ten in four categories: 9 for Weather (we know the truth about August), two 8‘s — one for Sports Fan’s Vacation and the other for Attractive People — and we share the visitor’s sentiment that Phoenix is the sixth most Relaxing Retreat.

I hope the declining housing market we’re in doesn’t hurt our scores this year. If you want to vote in this year’s polls, just go to Travel & Leisure’s 2008 Survey of America’s Favorite Cities.

I recently traded email with a prospect who is relocating to Phoenix from Nebraska, discussing Mid-century modern style in Phoenix as compared to the midwest.

Prospect:

… the home (that I sent photos of) had a different exterior…reminded me of plain block and I didn’t care for the look. The exterior of our home is more towards the traditional ranch, but it does have Roman brick on a portion of it.

To which I replied:

…The “plain block” that you don’t like is a staple on Phoenix Mid-Century modern homes. It’s called “slump block,” and is a favorite of architects from that period. You might consider this as part of getting used to the desert aesthetics.”

Alison King has a great discussion (and wonderful photos) about Mid-century modern homes in Phoenix in her article titled “Jazz Standard“ over at her ModernPhoenix website.

Midcentury era tract homes in Scottsdale and Phoenix are so ubiquitous that they often pass under the daily radar, and for good reason; classic ranch homes paved the suburbs of the Phoenix Metro area, emulating the romance of ranch style living in this citrus-field-gone-cosmopolitan city. During the same development boom that brought us western-themed ranches and whimsical character ranch styles such as Swiss Chalet and Dutch Colonial, there emerged a desert-adapted style of Contemporary Ranch architecture that passed on nostalgic forms in favor of neat lines and shade-soaked spaces.

Few postwar architects in Arizona can match the volume of production, variety and notoriety than that of Ralph Haver. Californian by birth but Phoenician by choice, Haver offered his accessible contemporary style to thousands by collaborating with local developers on sizable tracts of land. In the postwar era, tinkering with this new style of home became the American family’s leisure time hobby—their imaginations were fueled by a new genre of home-improvement publications such as Popular Mechanics and Sunset magazine. Today, Haver Homes are sought as creative projects for professional architects and do-it-yourselfers alike. Their clean lines, inherent potential for expansion and solid construction have allowed them to endure the decades through every possible design trend, from skimming with stucco to Santa Fe styling. Now Haver Homes are more likely to be stripped down to bare block or clad in corrugated steel to offer additional protection from the sun.

There was little intended as precious in Haver tract homes. Expression of economy and a few signature elements define the Haver Home styles. Preservationists generally agree that these homes retain their character better as one-story structures and that certain hallmark qualities, such as the clinker bricks and clerestory windows seen in several Haver neighborhoods are best left unmolested. But simply put, the tract homes were designed to be modified, including smooth concrete patios that were often destined to become Arizona Rooms, and the carports that could easily transform into a third bedroom to support a growing nuclear family. This inherently mutable trait poses a challenge among today’s designers who appreciate the original forms but invoke an oath to guide their work: Do nothing that cannot be undone.

In this regard, Haver Homes have become one of the Jazz Standards of architecture—a set of simple themes that an artist can improvise around while maintaining general integrity, and in the best cases emotionally thrill those it takes deep inside.

Be sure to follow the link to take a look at the rest of her article and at her pictures of the Lorna House.

I didn’t want to steal any of Alison’s gorgeous photos, but neither did I want to leave you unfulfilled of any visual treat, so here’s Shelby Lynne covering Burt Bacharach’s Anyone Who Had a Heart. She’s neither Dusty nor Dionne, but the setting of this video is cool and clean, and both 60s icons would have been right at home.

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As I understand it, Frank Lloyd Wright didn’t actually coin the word “Usonian,” but he sure is responsible for the style. The word takes its root from the United States of North America, and Wright used the word to describe his vision of the uniquely (North) American style — A democratic style of architecture for the American lifestyle. The intent was to provide small and inexpensive, but stylish and functional homes for the middle class, and he designed about fifty of these. A local Usonian home that I know about is in Moon Valley. Though he didn’t design this particular house, it’s clear that he influenced its style.

I stumbled across this beauty during the summer of 2005. We had a client for the house — an architecture aficionado and a Frank Lloyd Wright purist — who almost bought the house…

… except he realized, when he flew in for the inspection, that he would have to put too much into the house to restore it, including tearing down additions that in his opinion destroyed the integrity of the design.

Still, I’m in love with the house. When Wright designed the Jacobs house in 1936, he created the prototype of the Ranch Style. I know, Ranches are so ubiquitous that they hardly inspire a yawn from most people. Yet, from the time of the first Usonian during the depth of the Depression through the Postwar housing boom and into the 1950s, the Ranch Style projected a streamlined, casual, energetic lifestyle. The house expanded — using picture windows in front and glass doors in the back — to bring in the light and energy of the outdoors.

Of course, this, too, was the birth of Mid-Century Modern.

You can go here to see the rest of the visual tour we created for our client to wander the home from his Boston residence.

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I ran across this beautiful blog, which could serve as a delectable side dish to the feast that is the Modern Phoenix Neighborhood Network.

The author, Miki Kimuro, describes the blog as

Modern Design, Modern Architecture and Lifestyle Goodies: publishers of beautiful bling with an organic twist.

I would have loved to show an image from this blog, to give you a sample of the beautiful graphics here, but I couldn’t figure out how to contact Kimuro to get permission to copy a picture or two. So you’ll just have to click on over to take a gander for yourself.

Now. On the matter of modern-style, Greg and I will be listing a fifty-year old house later this month.

To help prepare the home for market, I’ve been keeping my eyes open for affordable mid-century pieces to help stage the home, and was tickled to run across this beautiful, modern coffee table on Craig’s List.

The photo is from the Craig’s List ad… I haven’t reassembled it yet to shoot my own. But… you get the picture!

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ArtLink’s First Friday is tomorrow night. I don’t know about you, but the heat’s been rough on me this week. Plus, the weatherman’s warning us of possible thunderstorms tomorrow evening. But rather than skipping this month altogether, I’m going to try making it to Burton Barr’s @Central Gallery. They’re sponsoring a First Friday Reception from 7 to 10 PM, featuring photographs by Michael Lundgren:

The Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture Public Art Program partnered with the Phoenix Office of Historic Preservation in 2006 to create the Historic Buildings Photography Project. Recognizing the rapid rate of development in Phoenix, this project intends to capture a specific historical era in local architecture. The City commissioned artist Michael Lundgren to create a photographic portfolio of important Phoenix buildings from the latter half of the 20th century. Lundgren worked closely with the Public Art Program and the Office of Historic Preservation to select the buildings and to create a view of each that best communicates its architectural significance. As the City continues to change and grow, these images will become a valuable resource for residents, planners, and scholars interested in the City’s more compelling historic structures.

Then, if it turns out the weather turns in our favor, the guardians of Modern Phoenix are chatting about an open house at DWL Architects, 2333 N. Central Ave. from 6 to 10 PM.

Nota Bene: I was honored to hear from Michael Lundgren, who pointed out that this post was confusing, because it isn’t clear that the photographs I used here are my own, not his. He’s right, and I offer my sincere apology. Of course, all you have to do is go to Mr. Lundgren’s site, and take a look at his masterpieces to know that the above photos are made by an amateur.

My gratitude to Michael Lundgren for pointing out my error, and for being patient for me to fix it while I dealt with the recent death of my father.

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I have a modest collection of Phoenix postcards, and a favorite view of the artists is of Central Avenue, looking north from just south of Adams to just south of Monroe. So today, when I was downtown in this very vicinity, I pulled out my trusty real estate camera and snapped this stretch as it looks today.

This was taken at about 2:00 this afternoon. Amazingly little traffic compared to days gone by, even considering construction for the light rail tracks.

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A national website that discusses real estate trends wrote over the weekend about “Pet Friendly Real Estate Agents Thriving In Marketplace.” I’m honored that the author, Tom Royce, mentioned Greg and BloodhoundRealty.com in that article:

“And you want further proof that being pet friendly is the way to go, look no further than our good friend Greg at Bloodhound Realty. Now that is pet friendly.”

I’m grateful, too, that Tom recognizes that our care of pets is sincere, not just a gimmick. Last week, Greg and I spent several days at a national conference of top Realtors. I met a lot of the country’s best real estate agents there, and gave out plenty of my business cards!

I am always tickled when people comment on Odysseus, our Bloodhound. But started becoming annoyed when I heard more times than I would have wished the mistaken notion that Odysseus is our brokerage’s representative as some sort of stunt… as though the only purpose is to tug at people’s heartstrings.

Greg has explained this on two different BloodhoundBlog posts: We selected our name and logo, because it’s iconic. It portrays traits we admire and strive always to live up to… traits such as loyalty, diligence, tenacity. Dedicated, Devoted, Determined™. Yes, dogs are cute. But they are so much more!

And so are cats… And birds… And all God’s creatures. And as a Realtor, someone who helps families move from one home to another, it’s about making that move as easy as possible on all the members of the family. including the ones with fur, feathers or scales.

Before we acquired so many pets in our own household, we fostered cats and dogs for no-kill shelters, like Noah’s Ark. Too often, I saw family pets who were given up because the family was moving, and for some reason they couldn’t take their pets with them. I always hope that people are able to come up with better choices to keep their furry families intact. So now, as a Realtor, I can help my clients explore their different options.

When you are buying or selling your home, and you have pets in your home, there are so many issues for you to consider. If you are buying, what are the HOA restrictions? Are there dog parks nearby? How about coyotes? If you’re selling, how do you keep your house presentable to show it in its best light? How do you keep your pets secure with a lock box on it? What about open houses?

And what do you do with your pets when you’re between homes? When one of our sellers thought she would have to give up her cat, Bob, because I had sold her house faster than she expected it would sell last fall, and the only apartment she could find to take her in on her terms wouldn’t budge on its no-pet policy, we worked out a much happier solution…

… One that kept them together. Because real estate isn’t just about houses — it’s about the people, and so often their pets, who live there.

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About a year ago, when I was hosting an open house at one of Greg’s listings in F.Q.Story, a young man came to tour the home. While he and I spoke, I mentioned the home’s proximity to Phoenix’s planned light rail system, expecting that he, like most people whom I have talked with on this subject, would subscribe to this being a benefit.

“Bah” (or something to that effect), he declared. “I’m from Houston, and I know that light rail systems don’t really help people… they only sound good, and make politicians popular. They’re just another boondoggle.”

Well… I pretty much agreed with him. Greg’s very first post on the weblog that eventually became BloodhoundBlog compared the “popular” (read that “politically correct”) heralding of Phoenix’s light rail with The Goldwater Institute’s forthright white paper on light rail.

Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about killing the 27-year-old reversible lane system on 7th Avenue and 7th Street that has served us so well. It came up again yesterday in an article in the Arizona Republic, which talked about how nice it would be if our streets were more pedestrian-friendly.

And now I have to compare that to a podcast I listened to recently, in which Randal O’Toole, Senior Fellow with the Cato Institute, and author of the insightful book, The Best-Laid Plans, discusses how Portland deliberately created gridlock as a way to ensure their failing light rail system would work.

Hmmmm….

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In a perfect world, folks back “home,” who chose to not leave the Great Lakes cities for milder weather would force me to move back, or acknowledging that forced relocation is frowned upon in a free society, the “rational” folks can always hope for global warming to push me back.

“Once the heat becomes unbearable, they may find the freezing cold a little more bearable–especially if it’s not quite so freezing cold as they remember.”

But even then,

It won’t happen without help. In Buffalo, Shibley speaks of a federal urban sustainabilty plan that funnels federal money to the Great Lakes region to help draw population back. It’s been more than 30 years since the U.S. had a comprehensive national urban plan. Looming ecological crises in burgeoning urban centers more than justify a revival. “Cities don’t grow by topsy, it’s not a thing of nature – it’s a function of public policy,” he says.

As objectionable as I found this Toronto Star column when I read it yesterday, I was — nevertheless — wishing for some relief from this summers’ heat. I’ve been putting on weight all summer, despite five dogs who would love for me to take them for walks. It’s just been too uncomfortably hot for any of us to spend any time other than what’s necessary outdoors.

But since this afternoon’s storms, have you noticed? The temperature has dropped to the low 80s! (A much more pleasant low-80s than I remember ever of a July evening in Cleveland, by the way.)

Channel 12 reported on some less-than-ideal consequences of the storms on the east side.

However… as I was driving up Central this evening, it couldn’t have been nicer. I was delighted to see all the walkers along the Murphy Bridle Path. You’d think that when I got home I would have grabbed a dog and joined the neighbors. But, alas, I made only enough time to run up to the canal to snap this photo of the stormy sky.

When you’re not living under the endlessly gray skies of the “more verdant climes,” cloudy skies sure do have their appeal.

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Back when Greg was a real estate rookie, he came home after spending the day helping a couple find their perfect home, ablaze with new information, wanting to share with me the new term that Mrs. Buyer had taught him — The Kitchen Triangle. I think he was a little surprised that I knew what he was talking about. I wasn’t a Realtor yet — years from it. But I am a woman, and I have had plenty of decades learning the difference a conveniently laid out kitchen can make.

So, I found it interesting to learn today that the work triangle that I learned about at my grandma’s apron is so last century! Susan Serra, Certified Kitchen Designer, tells us:

The bottom line in today’s new kitchen seems to be it’s all about US (one’s family), not “me,” with multiple stations designed for specific needs and/or desires.

Her article gives us cogent examples, a diagram, and a promise of further elaboration in future posts.

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Think getting your classic Phoenix home on the National Register of Historic Places is a good idea? Think again!

A couple of years ago, when Phoenix was having a particularly cold winter, I accidently domesticated a feral cat who I had been feeding in my yard. During my first decade of driving, I lived where winters really are cold — off of Lake Erie. I had learned better… hit your hood before starting your engine, in case a cat had crawled up inside during the night for warmth. But I’ve been spoiled in Phoenix, and hadn’t given it another thought when I started out for work that cold January morning. The thump, thump, thump coming from under the hood, and then seeing fur flying when Greg opened the hood to see what was going on, stopped me in horror! I thought I had killed the little feral cat that I had become so fond of. I rushed her to Vanaken Pet Hospital, and almost two months later they returned her to me in a lime green body cast. It wasn’t until we removed the cast from her, several weeks later still, that I realized Marquina is a Polydactyl.

My love for Marquina is how I came to be interested in Hemmingway Cats.

So I thought it was too bad when I read today that the U.S. government is threatening the home of Hemmingway’s cats.

I have no idea, of course, whether the complaints against the museum are legitimate, or perhaps the story of a disgruntled employee. How could I know? That’s a matter for local authorities to ferret out. And so I think it’s odd that the federal government would throw its heft into the matter. Then I noticed what gives them the authority:

U.S. Animal and Plant Inspection Service officials argue that the house, listed as a National Historic Landmark since 1968, requires a federal Animal Welfare License, like a circus or zoo, in order to keep housing the cats.

This reminded me of a house that I recently listed and sold in one of Phoenix’s historic districts. The transaction was an incredibly smooth and amicable one. The sellers were great, and so were the buyers. The buyers’ agent was wonderful, as was the title company and loan officer they had chosen for this transaction. Everything was running like a perfectly tuned instrument until a few days before close, when the loan officer called me for clarification. “The lender wants to know whether the house is on the National Register of Historic Places.” I said, no, the house is in an historic district, but isn’t specifically listed on either the state nor national registers. The loan officer was relieved… it seems that had the property been specifically named, the bank that was lending on the second mortgage wouldn’t approve the loan. Apparently, the bank reasoned that if the mortgage payment were to fall into default, the bank wouldn’t have all the normal rights to make the loan good, because they would have to deal with the federal government. They must have had some bad experience with a mortgage loan on a property listed in the National Register, which had gone into default, so decided to avoid potential for a similar problem in the future — no one wants to take on the Feds!

I’ve had clients tell me that they’d avoid nominating their homes for the Registry because they were afraid they’d be hamstrung from making changes without going through a lot of bureaucratic red tape. It’s a good idea to think through the long term consequences of partnering up with a force so much more powerful than you before being seduced by its charm.

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I was browsing The Library of Congress’ Maps Collections, and found a Bird’s eye view of Phoenix, sketched by C.J. Dyer in 1885. I don’t know how large the original map was, but it needs a lot of area in order to make out the detail… much more than I can see on my monitor; much more than I have to show it to you here. But for fun, I made a screen shot of the northern edges of civilized Phoenix.

The sketch is oriented as though the artist was standing southwest of the center of town. That’s Central, which was called Centre back then, shooting past Monroe Street and then Van Buren Street. Do you notice the canal running along the south side of Van Buren? The map’s legend tells us that this is the Salt River Canal! You can’t see it from this shot, but the complete map shows another canal that used to run through the city further north, around Indian School, called the Maricopa Canal, with the Grand Canal just north of that.

The next gridline north of and parallel to Van Buren — the one with the little white structure on the northeast corner — must be Roosevelt, so would that make the next grid line, the one with a few trees lined up along it east of Central, McDowell? If so, the next road to the north should be Thomas. But… the legend tells us that the estate on the northwest corner of that intersection belonged to J.T. Simms, who came to Arizona in 1881 with the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company. However, we know that the property that Colonel Simms owned along Central, between Roosevelt and Moreland, was subdivided in 1893 and is now part of the Roosevelt Historic District. Since we have no reason to expect this map was drawn to scale, perhaps that corner of this map is the forerunner of today’s Roosevelt Historic District. Have any of you already researched this? If so, I’d love to see comments on what you’ve learned…

Anyway, the map is pretty cool. You can look at the full map at The Library of Congress site, which uses a technology developed by LizardTech, called mrSID. You can even download the map to your own Mac or PC, and download a free mrSID viewer from LizardTech, which gives you much more control over the pan and zoom.

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I’ve been hearing about it for the past week. Greg painted it vividly in his post describing Phoenix’s palpable heat. Since the dew point this morning is only 45°F, the season is still not officially begun — but early this morning, when I was picking up the bowls of food I leave out at night for the little colony of feral cats that AZCats has helped me to keep in check, I knew it’s just a matter of days now. No matter what the climatologists end up calling it, if you’ve ever spent even one summer in Phoenix, you know what a Monsoon is!

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Dwell Magazine is a celebration of distinctive, modern architecture and design. If you’ve never picked up an issue before, this is the month for you to explore Dwell.

This month’s Detour feature, titled “Phoenix Envy,” is an interview with local architect, Will Bruder.

In this article Bruder tells Dwell readers what he likes most about the Valley of the Sun. No surprise that most of his favorite structures here are those that he designed, including the Burton Barr Central Library and the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. But he is justifiably proud. He also talks about arts in Phoenix, including First Fridays.

And if you’re ever looking for ideas for cool places to meet friends over drinks or dinner, be sure to pay attention to Bruder’s rundown in this article. If you’ve missed any of the restaurants he mentions, you really should make a point of making the rounds… especially if you’re in Phoenix’s historic neighborhoods, where so many of these establishments, such as My Florist Cafe and Zoës Kitchen, are found.

I’m disappointed with the sole photo the online article uses… it’s an unimpressive shot of our downtown skyline looking west over an empty field and detritus toward the buildings in Copper Square. It even shows a gray sky! Come on! How often do we have gray skies? The pictures in the magazine, especially that of SMoCA, are far more compelling.

Alternatively, a great source for images of local residences that have been designed, in whole or in remodeling, by Will Bruder is the MLS. You can use this link to an MLS Gateway I put together of homes currently listed for sale, or those that have sold through Realtors.

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