Guardians of the Gate

Arizona Foothills, Fall 2013

Next visit to San Francisco, consider The Inn at the Presidio or Cavallo Point. Each is a former Army fort that protected, respectively, the San Francisco and Marin County sides of the Golden Gate, now the site of the great bridge. Formerly Pershing Hall, opened in 1903, the Inn at the Presidio debuted in April 2012. Magnificently renovated, the Classic Revival-style Inn includes 22 rooms and the recently renovated Greek Revival Funston House, a historic four-bedroom home dating from 1889. Opened in summer 2008, Cavallo Point Lodge is the former Fort Baker, built between 1901 and 1915. Today, its 68 historic rooms and suites, once officers’ quarters, have been beautifully restored, and 74 contemporary accommodations, on the hillside above the parade grounds, offer spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge.

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The Power of Light

Western Art & Architecture, Fall 2013

Light, and full of light: This Contemporary home in Desert Mountain, the luxury north Scottsdale golf community, expresses clarity of design, sensitive site integration for views and privacy as well as effective materials coordination. Completed in 2009 by Andy Byrnes, AIA, Construction Zone, Phoenix, and designed two years before by Ted Flato, FAIA, Lake|Flato, San Antonio, the one-level includes a master bedroom; two casita suites; a two-car garage; an open kitchen/family room; and an adjacent living/dining area. Says Flato: “Wherever we go as a firm, we connect a home with the climate and the weather, taking advantage of what an area has to offer. In the Arizona desert, sun and desert are always conspiring for your attention — and this home showcases their remarkable power.”

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Touchdown Touches

Arizona Foothills, August 2013

This Contemporary Paradise Valley estate was owned by former Arizona Cardinals star quarterback, Kurt Warner, a future National Football League Hall of Famer, and, before him, Sandy Alomar Jr., a member of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Designed by Edward Chavez, the 11,300 square-foot showplace blends a modern style with a stylish entertaining layout, characterized inside and outside by engaging asymmetries, angles, curves and vari-shaped windows. At the base of Valley landmark, Mummy Mountain, the two-level home features four bedrooms, four garage bays and a theater. In the back is a 62-foot-long lap pool, a water feature, spa and separate casita. Touchdown!

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Sip the Pacific Northwest

McCormick Ranch Lifestyle, Summer 2013

Just short of an hour’s drive southwest of Portland, Ore., is the distinguished Willamette Valley, where 300-plus wineries are producing, in particular, outstanding Pinot Noirs. The luxurious Allison Inn and Spa in historic Newberg has provided the area with the its first full-service luxury hotel, and, nearby, you can enjoy excellent restaurants, shops, golf and the Hoover-Minthorn museum, celebrating the life of President Herbert Hoover, who lived in the house when he was a young man. Throughout the Willamette Valley are farmers markets, rolling-countryside backroads and endearing small towns. Children will especially enjoy the activities at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, home of Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose, in wonderful McMinnville, about 40 minutes from Newberg.

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Call of the Vines

Arizona Foothills, June 2013

Just less than an hour’s drive southwest of Portland in historic Newberg, the 85-room/suite Allison Inn is the elegant gateway to Oregon’s distinguished Willamette Valley, known worldwide for its sustainable agriculture, family-owned vineyards and innovative winemakers, such as Sokol Blosser, developing, in particular, world-class Pinot Noirs. On 35 hillside acres of a sustainably master-planned 450, the four-level boutique hotel includes a vanishing-edge swimming pool with floor-to-ceiling glass doors opening to the south gardens; 100-seat locavore restaurant, JORY, whose name recalls the glacial soil that helps make the area conducive to Pinot Noir and the region’s excellent fruits and nuts; and The Allison Spa, whose nearly 15,000 square feet offers 12 treatment rooms including a private suite. Dream deep, drink deep.

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Kai High Fives

Arizona Foothills, May 2013

The Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort & Spa on the Gila River Indian Community outside Phoenix, Kai (“seed”) remains, six years on, Arizona’s only AAA Five-Diamond/Forbes Five-Star restaurant. Featuring “Native American with Global Influences” cuisine prepared by Chef de Cuisine Joshua Johnson and staff, Kai celebrates local and regional cuisine in an atmosphere that is exceptional, sophisticated, sacred. In Zagat 2013 America’s Top Restaurants Survey, Kai earned the highest rating as the best food-rated restaurant for Phoenix/Scottsdale, and Kai has also received recognition from OpenTableDiners’ Choice Awards as the #1 Best Restaurant in the United States for service. Kai hosts themed wine dinners; its lead sommelier, Thomas Klafke, and Chef Johnson offer pairings with wines from, in this instance, fine Italian vineyards.

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Bob Bondurant: Winner’s Circle

Arizona Foothills, May 2013

Teaching and track: Bob Bondurant. This year, the champion race car driver and founder of the world-famous Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving is celebrating twice. On Feb. 14, he, his wife Pat, employees of the school and well-wishers marked the forty-fifth anniversary of the school, proudly located on the Gila River Indian Community in Chandler. Two months after the school event, April 27, he celebrated his eightieth birthday at his Paradise Valley home. Bob brilliantly raced Corvettes in the mid-‘50s, winning the west coast SCCA B Production National Championship in 1959 with a stunning 18 of 20 wins. For Carroll Shelby, Bob participated in the 1965 World Manufacturers Championship, besting Ferrari — almost a half-century later still the only American team to achieve this. Says the octogenarian track legend: “Let’s race!”

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Hacienda de Primavera

Scottsdale Living, Spring 2013

The owners call their desert mountainside home “Hacienda del Sueño” (“Dream Home”), but the moniker could also be “Home of Spring” — “Hacienda de Primavera.” Built by Scottsdale’s La Casa Builders, the 7,248-square-foot Modern Hacienda eloquently expresses the owners’ vision, flexing for a multi-faceted lifestyle that finds them as much outside as in — particularly in spring, when the desert effloresces before it sizzles. The three-bedroom one-story, plus single-bedroom semi-attached casita, is meticulously sited in north Phoenix on a one-acre triangular lot, delivering imposing southside views of Camelback Mountain. The owners, for sure, joy in their home: “It makes it easy to have sweet dreams,” the wife says.

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The Best Batcave West of Gotham

Highline Autos, March 2013

Valley of the Sun resident Charles Keller, multiply masked as the Caped Crusader, wealthy Bruce Wayne, and indefatigably loyal family butler A.L.F.R.E.D. — Ambassador & Liaison for Research, Education & Development — maintains a super-equipped Batcave and fires up the turbines of the Batmobile to entertain children with lifelong or life-threatening illnesses. Together with his family and loyal cave cohorts, Keller offers them, their families and friends the superhero experience of Batman and his unBatlievable underground lair, beneath stately Wayne Manor secretly south of Gotham City. What’s next at the Batcave? Stay roosted and tuned in: “Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel!” Want to hang out? Write [email protected].

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A Prescription for Campus Care

Architectural Record, March 2013

The 36,900-sq-ft LEED Platinum-targeted Health Services Building at Arizona State University in Tempe, Ariz., is light-suffused, sustainable, inviting — a contextually sited destination for students seeking medical treatment and guidance in a garden/spa environment conducive to healing and good health practices. The new building adds approximately 20,000 square feet of clinical space on the south and incorporates the renovated two-story 1968 structure on the north while adding a grass sward. This area is the historical heart of campus, so the HSB is incorporated with three century-old structures, all on the National Register of Historic Places: Old Main, the University Club and the Piper Writer’s House.

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The Clines: Recycling Arizona History

Green Living, January 2013

Arizona history and environmental awareness are both at home with the Clines, a Tempe family anchored in 150-plus years in state and territorial history. Their remodeled and expanded home, built in 1968, celebrates various influences: his growing up on a horse and cattle ranch near Payson in the Star Valley; her love of the Spanish Mission style; Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture; and the work of Greene and Greene, whose Arts and Crafts style inspires the work of Larry Langhurst and Bernie Becker of Phoenix-based Woodesign, which handcrafted the beautiful millwork. The design team also included the team of general contractor, R.D. Hendrickson, of Scottsdale-based Modern Group; Tony Sutton’s interior design firm, Est Est Incorporated, Scottsdale; and architect Joe Conk, AIA, principal of Fort Worth, Texas-based Conk Architecture.

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Contemporary Retirement

Arizona Foothills, November 2012

Susan Hersker, ASID, is one of the Scottsdale-area’s finest interior designers. With associate Elaine Ryckman, Allied ASID, she recently completed this dual-master home in a north Scottsdale golf community for the retirement-focused owners. Featuring a large open living area with automated pocketing doors to outdoor areas for mingling and entertaining, the home combines complementary textures: stacked-stone walls, honed-stone floors, polished-stone countertops, metals such as patinaed steel and copper, art glass, exotic woods and opulent fabrics such as silk, mohair and calfskin. These, combined with the warm wood colors and neutral-colored floor, dramatically backdrop the furniture, which blends shades of beige, taupe, eggplant, expresso and ivory.

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Autumn in Arizona

McCormick Ranch Lifestyle, Fall 2012

‘Every desert October, when you begin missing the aromas of fall and the leaves’ crackling, don’t go home to New England, Montana or Oregon . . . Instead, stay home in Arizona, itself a harvest of colors and textures.’ Here are three locations in Arizona where you can enjoy the season’s symphony: In Greer, in the White Mountains, Molly Butler Lodge & Cabins, visited by Teddy Roosevelt, John Wayne and Zane Grey; just north of downtown Sedona, the Creekside Inn features Oak Creek running through its three wooded acres; and, 35 miles south of Tucson, the Tubac Golf Resort & Spa occupies the historic 1789 Otero Ranch. You’ll fall for this getaway story.

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Harley-Davidson Museum: Hogs Gone Wild

Highline Autos, October 2012

The Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee, Wis., is owned by the 110-year-old company — and it’s a two-wheel thrill ride into hogs and history. The 130,000-square-foot museum complex is just a mile from the Santiago Calatrava-designed Milwaukee Art Museum. More than 500 vehicles and thousands of artifacts comprise the motorcycle museum’s collection, including Harley-Davidson Serial Number One — the oldest known Harley in the world, with a clearly stamped “number one.” “This isn’t just a piece of Harley-Davidson history; it’s American history, too,” says Bill Davidson, vice president of the museum and the great-grandson of co-founder William Davidson. Jump on, stop in.

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Wright Apprentices Celebrate 75 Years of Taliesin West

Arizona Foothills, September 2012

In 1937, 20-plus Frank Lloyd Wright apprentices began construction of Taliesin West in the Sonoran Desert foothills, now Scottsdale. Hundreds of later apprentices would add to the great architect’s winter home and school as part of their learning experience with him until his death in April 1959. The 555-acre campus became a National Historic Landmark in 1982, and this year celebrates 77 years since the groundbreaking. Among these apprentices: Cornelia Brierly, 99, who died a month after this story was written and was on site when Wright decided to build Fallingwater where it now is; her sister, Hulda; John Lautner and his wife, Mary Bud; Arnold Roy; John Rattenbury; Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer; Kamal Amin; Vern Swaback, whose firm is in Scottsdale; and Paolo Soleri, who died in 2013. We celebrate their achievements and that of Taliesin West.

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Modern Craftsman Works at DC Ranch

Arizona Foothills, September 2012

La Casa Builders, Scottsdale, (Ron Steege and Tim Larson, principals) designed and built this diamond-shape-themed home and casita for a DC Ranch family of five requesting contemporary style rooted in nature and tradition. Avoiding overembellishment, self-indulgence and clutter, “Dobrados Diamantes” is inspired by the hand-crafting and natural-materials principles of the 19th/early-20th-century Arts and Crafts movement, whose exemplars include William Morris, Rennie Mackintosh, Gustav Stickley, Louis Tiffany,Frank Lloyd Wright and brothers Charles Sumner and Henry Greene. Elizabeth Rosensteel, Phoenix, completed the interior design.

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Sisters in the Gaslamp Quarter

Arizona Foothills, August 2012

Two standout sister hotels in and just bordering the Gaslamp Quarter, San Diego’s hip dining, entertainment and shopping district, offer superb, although different, experiences for California getaways. Owned and managed by San Francisco-based Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants, the 183-room Hotel Palomar is at the northern gateway to the Quarter, while the 235-room Solamar, managed by Kimpton, is a few blocks south toward the beaches. If Hotel Palomar is urban elegant and artistic, Solamar is urban slick and coastal chic and cool, adding proximity to the hotels and restaurants, rooftop bars, cafes, boutique shops, galleries, and live-music and sports venues in the East Village, San Diego’s emerging arts and entertainment district. Check in and check it all out.

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The Way it Was at DC Ranch

Scottsdale Living, Summer 2012

This young family, with three boys, uses all 13,128 square feet of their Southwest-Mediterranean-style DC Ranch in north Scottsdale. Incorporating the spirit of the parents’ Midwest backgrounds, the golf-course-lot home by Scottsdale-based La Casa Builders includes five bedrooms, nine bathrooms, a five-car garage and a detached casita, all of which the couple generously opens for friends and family. “We wanted the amenities of a master-planned community and the fabric of a traditional community,” one owner says. “We wanted a home where the children can ride their bikes down the street and go to school with the same children they play football with.”

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Carroll Shelby – A Life Lived Large

Highline Autos, June 2012

Carroll Hall Shelby, 89, died May 10, 2012. Born Jan. 11, 1923, in Leesburg, Texas, Shelby was a championship racecar driver, wartime pilot, philanthropist, entrepreneur, car manufacturer and world-championship racing team owner. He is the only man to win Le Mans as a driver, team owner and automotive manufacturer, and his racing team won the Manufacturers’ World Campionship in 1965, besting Ferrari and his unbeatable GTOs. Shelby created the legendary Cobra as well as the Daytona Coupe and King Cobra, and his Carroll Shelby International outputs muscle cars, including the Shelby GT500 Super Snake and continuation Shelby-badged cars. Hop in to celebrate the legend.

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Will You Be My Blend?

Arizona Foothills, April 2012

“Michael [De Loach] and I met about five years ago,” recalls Lori Eccles, whose family owns Sun Devil Liquors in Mesa. “He was in Arizona kicking off his new winery, Hook & Ladder, and my sales rep from the beverage company called me to make an appointment to try some ‘new wines from the De Loach family.’ Why not?” They met, they quaffed, they flirted — and, this June, they will be they married amidst the vines of Hook & Ladder in viticulturally famed Sonoma County. Michael, whose dad founded DeLoach Vineyards, missed the first wine tasting they had discussed. But, “Michael made it to the tasting the next month, and we went to dinner and just had this awesome connection,” Eccles says, “and we have been together ever since.” The oenophilic honeymooners joyously suggest some wine blends to celebrate the nuptials. Please uncork responsibly.

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