Love, Intrigue, and Greed

OK. Definitely time for a new post. My lack of posting isn't for lack of topics or activities, it is because I am too tired at night to stay up late and write the commentary to go with the photos. That and being busy before we head north. I will try to do better in the next few weeks.


For eight years I have noticed the roof of this building as we traveled the 202 north, usually on trips to the airport, but also on light rail excursions. Last spring I learned the 'castle' would be open and available for tours after being closed for a number of years. A tour of the castle and gardens made the Red Hats itinerary in March. I secured my ticket last September! 

So here is the story of love, greed, and intrigue of the Tovrea Castle...

The Carraro Story

          "Born in Italy, Alessio came to the United States and built a fortune in the sheet metal business in San Francisco, California. With modest beginnings as a shoe cobbler, Alessio became a successful land developer, gold miner and developed a prowess as a Water Witch.

          In 1928, Alessio moved to Arizona with dreams of developing the desert just east of Phoenix into a resort destination and housing subdivision known as Carraro Heights. The centerpiece of his vision was a hotel, which is the main structure we see today. The building’s design and the surrounding gardens are the result of Alessio’s vision. Alessio, with his son Leo (age 16), oversaw the fourteen-month project which was completed in 1930.

           Alessio’s dreams were short-lived however, as the hotel and a portion of the property were sold in 1932. Some speculate the nearby meat packing plant was to blame for dashing Alessio’s dream. Others surmise the timing of his venture, which paralleled the Great Depression, created financial stresses. Nonetheless, the “vision” remains today for all to enjoy and wonder about."

So the castle was commissioned by Alessio Carraro to be built near a stockyard and meat packing plant. In fact the views from the south facing windows looked out upon the stockyard and sheep pasture. What was he thinking???

The "hotel" had some interesting features on the grounds. This rectangular shaped, brick walled feature was meant to be a game similar to pool or billiards. There are holes in each of the corners and along the two long walls similar to a billiard table. Maybe a game like croquette? But since the place was never a hotel, I wonder if it was ever used as it was intended?

The Garden’s Early Years

"In the early stages of the Carraro Heights development, a Russian gentleman by the name of M. Moktatchev, fondly known as Mokta, appeared at Alessio Carraro’s doorstep with a proposal.  He offered to build a cactus garden.  A well-traveled man, Mokta had personal contacts all around the world and was able to acquire various desert related plant specimens from Australia, South America and Africa’s Sahara Desert.  These were in addition to the cacti he acquired from California, Colorado, New Mexico, Mexico and Arizona.  With the help of Alessio Carraro and his son Leo, Mokta planted over 500 species of cactus.  Mokta carefully labeled each cacti with its common and Latin name."  One of the most eye-catching features of the gardens is the white river rock that lines the gardens.

The Garden Today

"Although many of the original plants did not survive through the years and most of the physical structures require restoration, the grandeur of the gardens is still apparent today.  In 1998 the City of Phoenix began the first phase of the Garden restoration.  Architects studied historic photographs of the garden to determine which plants had been used originally.  Over the course of a year, they planted 400 Saguaros and 1,000 smaller cactus.  The new plants were planted  less densely to allow for proper growth and development and the City installed irrigation systems, split rail fencing, driveway lighting and returned the river rock to it’s original white color."

It is said Alessio wanted to keep his sons busy, (or his workers?) so they gathered river rock from the Salt River, hauled them up to the castle, and painted them white. 2,600 truck loads according to Alessio's son. Our guides suggested the white rocks would have lined the walking paths for the guests on the grounds at night. (Boy Scouts have been painting the rocks as projects the last few years. We were told they will not be painted again.)

Areas of the rock wall that surround grounds are beginning to deteriorate.

The hotel was built with three tunnels that led from the basement to steps and the grounds of the hotel, one on each of the south corners and one to the ground's entertainments on the north side.

This is how tourists get around on the grounds today. Only 15 guests at a time, only two tours a day. Call ahead for reservations.

So would you like to see the inside??? Only the first floor and basement are open for the tours.

The patio light fixtures are in the shape of the castle. Cool, huh?  

Original light fixtures in the dining room of the hotel, located on the east end of the first floor. Also original Italian style stencil painting on the ceiling

and walls. (The original stencil frames are on display in the basement.)

Unique marble electric fireplace in the lounge section of the hotel. (The other 'half' of the dining room.) It was a small hotel with maybe 8 guest rooms. The painted medallion above the fireplace was created by the same artist who did the medallions in the historic Orpheum Theater in Phoenix.

None of the original furniture is preserved for the castle. The floors are original and beautiful hardwood.

I found the main floor restroom interesting. The sink was in one small closet

and the toilet in another. In a hotel??? 

We then moved to the west side of the main floor and the hotel lobby. Notice the attractive footwear? And the hole in the floor??? There was cool air coming through the holes. This was the air conditioning of the 1930s. The holes came from the basement (ceiling to floor) and cool air was felt. Notice the wood floor.

One of the original ceiling lights in the kitchen, also on the main floor.

A bullet hole in the kitchen ceiling, but that part of the story comes later. 

The original blue kitchen sink. Have you caught the blue theme in the kitchen yet?

The kitchen cupboard and workspace.

Now for some fun in the basement...

Again, an original 1930 light fixture on an unusual ceiling. 

The ceiling looked like meringue. It too is original.

Here is part of the story of the ceiling.

There is one of two bird nests in the ceiling.

One of the three tunnel doors leading from the basement to the grounds.

So you should be wondering if Alessio Carraro built the hotel, how come it is known as the Tovrea Castle?

The Tovrea Story

            "Who were the Tovreas?  The story begins with a young man named Edward Ambrose (“E.A.”) Tovrea.  Born in Illinois in 1861, E.A. moved to Kansas at the age of 10 where he worked on a cattle ranch and learned skills that in time would lead him to build a prosperous empire.  A true pioneer, at the age of 19, he moved west and started a freight company transporting goods between Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona.  He eventually settled in Arizona where he built and owned butcher shops throughout the state.  His final stop was in Phoenix in 1919 where he founded the Arizona Packing Company, later known as the Tovrea Packing Company located just east of Phoenix in the area that is now around Washington and 48th Street.

          E.A.’s business ventures were eventually passed on to his son Phil, and the Tovrea empire continued to thrive. Edward and Phil were respected business men, and well known for being men of their words, with handshakes being their bond. History reflects that the employees of the Tovrea workforce were extremely loyal and the Tovrea business enjoyed low employee turnover – a sign of a healthy and positive working environment. The company prospered for 50 years and during the 1940s was considered one of the most modern and well-run meat processing and packing plants in the world.

       In 1932, E.A. and his second wife Della purchased the castle from Alessio Carraro.  Sadly, E.A. passed away within a year."  

So in 1919 E.A. Tovrea built a stockyard and later a meat packing plant on the land that appealed to Carraro in 1928. In 1928 when Mr. Carraro bought the adjacent castle property, E.A. Tovrea’s Arizona Packing Company had over 400 employees, slaughtered 20,550 cattle, 6,583 calves, 11,298 sheep and 42,556 hogs, generated $4,752,465.72 in Sales and $249,859.04 in Net Profit.

     "Della was just 18 years old when she married E.A. Tovrea. He was 45, divorced, and the father of five sons. E. A. died in 1932 at the age of 70 and just months after he and Della moved into the castle completed by Carraro.  Della eventually married William Stuart, {1936} editor of a Prescott newspaper. Della Tovrea resided in the castle until her death in 1969. The castle remained part of the Tovrea estate until it was purchased by the City of Phoenix in 1993."

     "Italian immigrant and San Francisco businessman Alessio Carraro had hoped to develop a prestigious resort when he purchased 277 aces of rugged desert land east of Phoenix in 1928. He saw great potential in the property, which offered beautiful mountain views and fronted the main route from the city to what was once the popular Papago Saguaro National Monument.
     Carraro's plan for the land was to build a hotel and use it as the center piece of a first-class residential development that would be called "Carraro Heights." The hotel, he figured, would provide him a steady flow of potential home buyers.

     The hotel, which took the shape of a three-tier castle, was built without any specific plans. Two granite knolls were leveled with dynamite and a third was blasted open to form the bed for the basement. Much of the granite was crushed and made into concrete blocks for the foundation. The building was framed with wood and covered with stucco sheathing.

     Inside, Carraro went for many recycled materials. [The 1929 Stock Market Crash forced Carraro to scale back, simplify his construction, and be resourceful, using recycled materials inside.] The maple flooring throughout the hotel came from a house in Phoenix that was being razed. The kitchen cabinets were made from mahogany and oak salvaged from the Phoenix National Bank, which was being remodeled. And, a vault from the bank was turned into a basement wine cellar.

     The hotel was just about finished as the 1930 Christmas season approached. Carraro celebrated by installing 1,000 red, green, yellow and blue lights on the split-rail fence that surrounded the property and topping the arched gateway with a 10-foot electric tree. [Apparently, they went around and they dipped all the light bulbs in colored paint -- you know, red, blue, green for Christmas. And then they strapped the Christmas Tree to the flagpole on the top of the Castle and the Christmas Tree was all lit up.] The display won The Arizona Republic's holiday decorations contest and the newspaper called the entry a "brilliantly lighted castle in the desert." It was the first time the building was publicly referred to as a castle, a label that would last to this day.

     Carraro's dream of a resort hotel and a subdivision of fine homes ended a few months later. [But Carraro's dream of a hotel resort would never come to be. His neighbor, E.A. Tovrea, had a stockyard nearby. The stockyard stench would no doubt deter and disturb future guests. Carraro had one hope:

the property between the stockyard and his castle was for sale and could serve as a buffer.] For some time, Carraro had tried unsuccessfully to buy 40 acres adjacent to his land that would serve as an important buffer between his property and a stockyard and meat packing plant. When the acreage finally was sold, it went not to Carraro, but to the owner of the nearby packing company E. A. Tovrea. [That property was owned by a man, Dolph Bates, who lived in Globe. E.A. Tovrea and Carraro were both vying to buy that property from Mr. Bates. Leo swears that his dad was offering the same money that Tovrea was, but for some reason the land was sold to the Tovreas.]
     Tovrea promptly put up sheep pens on the land. That was it for Carraro, who figured few people would be interested in buying a nice home next to a flock of sheep. In June, 1931, Carraro accepted an offer from a real estate agent for the hotel and much of the property. Unknown to him was that the buyer was Della Tovrea, the wife of the packing company owner. [E.A and Della had what would have been a very nice home at the time on 48th street and Van Buren. Della wanted the Castle on the hill, which really wasn't as modern a building, but they bought the Castle and immediately moved into the Castle.] Would it have made any difference had he known the name of the buyer? No one knows.

     The Tovreas turned the hotel into their home and moved in before the end of the year. The following year, E.A. died. Della later married William Stuart, publisher of the Prescott Courier, and they lived in the home until his death in 1960. Della stayed on until her death in 1969."

Remember the bullet hole in the kitchen ceiling?

After the death of her second husband, Della began to lament about the large house, large unprotected property,  and living there all alone. [She slept on a cot in the kitchen and heard them come in upstairs. She also carried a pistol with her to scare people off the property. She fired the pistol through the ceiling in the kitchen to try to scare them off, but it didn't. She was tied up and beaten up in the robbery and passed away a couple of months later.] Della was born in October 1888, so she was nearly 80 years old and becoming a bit eccentric. She lived alone in the castle. Her greatest fear was someone breaking into the castle and robbing her. It eventually happened. Della did not die as a result of the robbery incident.

The Castle sat little used for decades. In 1993, the City of Phoenix , realizing its value to Arizona , began the process of acquiring the property.

 Can you see the building with the cow/bull on top? 

It was visible from the higher castle grounds. On the recommendation of the volunteer tour guides, it was our lunch destination. 

The building is on the original site of the offices of Tovrea's stockyards and meat packing operation.

Mural painted walls in our dining room.

Stained glass windows in another dining room.

Delicious food and the perfect ending to the intriguing history and story of Tovrea Castle in Carraro Heights.

 

*Accurate historical information was taken from several websites. Historical information (stories) about 

the people and castle was taken from other websites. And then there is what I remember from the tour and my personal opinions and comments. (I spent four hours working on this post tonight. Now you know why I don't publish one like this every day or every other day! The posting time is accurate.)