Willo
Tile roof, arched door, a palo verde doing most of the air conditioning. Around eight hundred houses like this one, six minutes from downtown, the whole district protected.
Phoenix has better houses than it gets credit for.
I’m a licensed REALTOR here. Most of what I do is point people toward the parts of the Valley that were built well. Those tend to be the parts that hold their value too.
Some houses hold their value. Most don’t.
A lot of what sells on the edge of the Valley goes at a premium that quietly disappears once the next phase opens, and round-trip costs run eight to ten percent, so it can take years just to get back to where you started.
Older places closer in behave differently, and the reason is boring: there is a fixed number of them. Nobody is building another 1928 bungalow six minutes from downtown.
It also happens they’re the ones I like looking at. Probably not a coincidence.
I’d rather not end up selling your house for less than you owe on it.
Things I like
Taliesin West
He spent twenty winters building it out of the ground it stands on. Worth an afternoon whether or not you ever buy anything.
The Arizona Biltmore
Built with Wright’s textile-block system and Wright himself on site as consultant, which is why people have argued about who should get the credit ever since.
Burton Barr
Copper, steel, and a five-storey canyon of a reading room. It took the AIA’s Twenty-five Year Award in 2021, which is the one you can only win by still being good decades later.
Garden walls
Bougainvillea, agave, a pepper tree. The planting in these districts is as old as the houses and does half the work of cooling them.
New Windsor
There is not much left in Phoenix from before statehood. This one is still standing and still housing people, which is a better outcome than most buildings its age got.
Where it applies
Willo
Bungalows, Tudor and Spanish Revival on deep lots. Designated historic, so what anyone can do to it is limited. That is the point.
1920–1940Encanto–Palmcroft
Curved streets laid against the grid, the largest lots of any central district, and a park on its doorstep.
1920–1940Coronado
Smaller bungalows and more of them. Usually the most affordable way into a historic district on this side of town.
1920–1940Paradise Gardens
Al Beadle’s desert subdivision. Flat roofs, block walls, and mountain views out of nearly every window.
1960sMarlen Grove
Ralph Haver tract housing: low-pitched roofs, exposed beams, clerestory windows up near the ceiling. Built to a budget and still lovely.
1950sGet in touch
Tell me what you’re looking at.
Happy to give you a second opinion on something you’ve already found, even if it turns out you don’t need me.
Got it. I’ll read it properly and come back to you inside a day.