Theme Day: Landmarks

The November 1st theme for City Daily Photo bloggers is "Landmark" and what better Phoenix landmark is there than Tovrea Castle.  Do you remember back in 2010 and 2011 when I spent quite a lot of time here helping the city get it ready to open to the public?  I probably mentioned sometime back then how this place sits atop a hill on the south side of Phoenix right in the flight path for Sky Harbor International Airport.  When I spent all those years doing consulting work in other cities, I always knew I was home when I peeked out the airplane window and spotted the castle as we approached for a landing.  So not only is a city landmark but it's a personal landmark for me too.  If you don't remember this place, click here and you will see some of the many posts I did about the place back then.  The post from June 10, 2010 tells the story of the castle.

If you want to see how other city daily photo bloggers depict "landmark" for their cities click here.

Modern Day Castle

The Copenhaver Castle clinging to the side of Camelback Mountain. I told the story of this “home” in 2008. Click here to read it.

Castle Living Room

When the city gets the Tovrea Castle restored and ready for public visits, this is one of the rooms you will see. The hardwood floor is original and the stenciling on the walls has been beautifully restored to its original look.

Tovrea Castle

Today’s photo is a close up view of the castle that most people only get to see from a distance. Do you see those little circles around the top of each wedding cake-like layer? Those are actually lights that are lit up each night. I plan to do some night photography of this place to share with you one of these days.

In the small photo, you can clearly see those lights I mentioned.

Tovrea Castle at Carraro Heights

Tovrea Castle is located in southeast Phoenix on a little rise called Carraro Heights after the man who built the castle between 1928 and 1930. Alessio Carraro was an Italian immigrant who purchased the land here in order to build his dream of a resort surrounded by desert vegetation.


His dream was dashed when Edward Ambrose Tovrea expanded his cattle business to build sheep pens abutting the Carraro land. Knowing that guests would not want to vacation in close proximity to the unpleasant by-products of penned cattle and sheep, Carraro sold the property. The buyer turned out to be Della Tovrea, wife of E.A. Tovrea the offending cattle baron.

The Tovrea’s moved into the castle, but two short years later, E.A, Tovrea died. Della continued to live there until she married William Stuart when the two began living in Prescott during the summers and spent winters at the castle. When Stuart died in 1960, Della returned full time to the castle and lived there alone until her death in 1969. You can read more about the amazing history of this place here.

Since that time, the property was largely unused and as you might expect significant deterioration has taken place. The city of Phoenix bought the property in 1993 in hopes of restoring it to its historical elegance and opening it to the public.

The downturn in the world economy has had a devastating effect on all such non-essential projects so once again the castle restoration has been stalled. However, the city now is encouraging volunteers to help with restoration efforts. Regular volunteer opportunities are available to help keep the gardens healthy. (Click this link for more information.) More volunteer and contributory opportunities are in development.

Over the next few days, I’ll show you more photos I took on the day a close friend of mine and I volunteered to work in the gardens.

Step Back in Time

I’ve been doing some cleaning lately and discovered some boxes of old negatives. I spent one whole weekend a month or so ago sorting out the negatives I wanted to keep and discarding the rest. The photo above is a result of one that I kept.

Many years ago I traveled on some dusty and rutted roads and discovered an amazing oasis in the middle of what seemed like nowhere. Just northwest of the Phoenix city limits and completely hidden from any main roads by the cliffs and crags of the Bradshaw Mountains is place called Castle Hot Springs. It opened in 1896 as a hotel to accommodate a surge of tuberculosis patients who had come to Arizona in search of relief. The waters of the hot springs were thought to have medicinal properties.

It soon started attracting some of America’s wealthiest and well known families. During WWII it was leased to the military and was used to house recuperating soldiers including John F Kennedy who was seeking treatment for his injured back.

When I first saw this place, I came around a rather rugged bend in the road to be greeted by green lawns dotted with white umbrellas over tables covered in equal amounts of white linen. In front of me in the middle of the rough Arizona desert was a garden party straight out of Cecil B. DeMille film! I went back a few weeks later to take pictures but was too late in the season for another garden party.

The hotel you see in the photo above burned down in 1976 and shortly after that, the property was donated to Arizona State University. It has since changed hands several more times. As far as I can tell, it has never reopened as a resort. I’ll have to take a drive back there again and see what it looks like now.

Other times ‘a man’s castle is his home’

When I spotted yesterday’s house I immediately thought of this well known Phoenix residence built into the side of Camelback Mountain. This house is known as the Copenhaver Castle named for the Phoenix orthodontist who built the place over a twelve-year period during the 70’s and into the 80’s. The exterior walls were built of stone blasted from the mountainside property which makes it blend into the mountain’s terrain and almost disappear in certain light. The house has been featured on the television show “This Old House” and other television shows. At one time, Dr. Copenhaver opened the home to tours on special occasions, but after the home sold in 1989, it is now a strictly private residence. The home was built in the style of a Moorish castle complete with battlements and rounded towers.

Sometimes ‘a man’s home is his castle’

I spotted this modest little house when I was running an errand and took a side street to avoid some heavy traffic. It was located on the corner of a mid-Phoenix neighborhood. It certainly looks as though someone has attained a bit of royal atmosphere for their humble abode. Check back tomorrow and I'll show you another Phoenix castle.