Tovrea Castle at Carraro Heights, usually shortened to Tovrea Castle, is located on Van Buren near 51st Street in Phoenix.
The vision for Tovrea Castle began way back in 1928 when Italian immigrant Alessio Carraro sold his very successful sheet metal business in San Francisco and moved to Phoenix to get in on the building boom, specifically the resort boom. He purchased 277 acres for $68, 000 just east of downtown Phoenix planning to build a resort atop one of the hills with a housing subdivision known as Carraro Heights below. Alessio and his son, Leo, began building the central piece of the plan, the hotel.
Although Alessio hired an architect to draw up a plan for the hotel, he often changed it to bring in more Italian architectural features, a reminder of his roots. The lighted parapet walls on each of the three stories give it its cake-like appearance. Although the hotel had neither heating nor cooling, the property was strung with 10,000 feet of wire to power the 1000 lights.
Lighting aside, Alessio was "green" before it was popular and repurposed/recycled quite a few items for his hotel. The exquisite maple floors came from a Phoenix building that was being demolished at the time Alessio was building his hotel. They have now been restored to their original beauty and we were required to wear shoe coverings (booties) while we toured the main floor.
The Phoenix National Bank was doing some remodeling about that same time. Their vault became Alessio's wine cellar in the basement and the mahogany teller windows were made into the kitchen cabinets.
In addition to recycling materials, Alessio also used workers and artisans while they were here working on other projects. Italian artisans were brought over to work on the Orpheum Theatre so Alessio met with them and then hired them to work on several projects in his hotel as a side job.
The plastered walls as well as the now-famous medallion of the dancer in red over the fireplace in the living room were such projects. If she looks familiar, it might be because the same Italian artisans who made this medallion also made the one on the Orpheum Theatre. The ornate stenciling on the walls is seen throughout the castle.
The basement ceiling is most unusual and something I've never seen before - pulled plaster. The meringue-like peaks were created by the Italian plaster artisans, a technique that was apparently popular in Italy at the time. Alessio's son, Leo, who was then a teenager, decided to have some fun and made little bird's nests in a few of the "valleys" by adding small, round plaster "eggs" (photo on right).
Russian immigrant M. Moktachev, known as Motka to his friends, approached Alessio with a proposal to build a cactus garden around the hotel. Motka was a world-traveler with many contacts and acquired desert-type plants from Australia, South America, the Sahara Desert, Mexico as well as from California, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. He planted more than 500 species of cactus carefully labeled with both their common name and Latin name. He designed the garden with paths for guests to stroll, small patios with benches and two concrete-lined ponds. Leo and his friends gathered river rock from the Salt River (which actually flowed back then!) at the south end of the property and painted them white to line the trails.
The garden is still being renovated but several of the original name tags remain as well as the white river rock. Many of the original plants did not survive. The master plan is to return plantings and garden features to the original 1928-1932 layout as envisioned and designed by Alessio and Mokta.
The hotel was finally finished in 1930, 14 months after construction began. That Christmas Leo decorated the hotel by dipping hundreds of light bulbs in red, blue and green paint and stringing them around the hotel. Then he strapped a lighted Christmas tree to the flagpole on top of the dome and entered the Phoenix Spirit of Christmas outdoor decorating contest sponsored by the Arizona Republican newspaper. The hotel won and after the newspaper described it as "a brilliantly lighted castle," it was forever more known as a "castle."
The hotel opened in the midst of the Great Depression. Luxury vacations became a thing of the past. Alessio's wife was still living in San Francisco and refused to move to Phoenix and live in a "snake-infested wasteland." Almost as soon as it opened, unproven rumors began flying about it being a casino linked in some way to Al Capone. And in 1932, Alessio Carraro sold the hotel and 44 acres to an "unknown buyer" for $21,500.
Who was this "unknown buyer" and why did he buy the hotel? Rewind 13 years when Edward Ambrose (EA) Tovrea founded the Arizona Packing Company in 1919. He later changed the name to Tovrea Packing Company and ran the business with his son, Phil. His meat processing and packing plant was located at what is now 48th Street and Washington, not far from Alessio's property. EA and Phil were hard-working, well-respected business men and their company prospered - in fact, in the 1940's it was considered one of the most modern and well-run meat processing and packing plants in the world.
As the Tovreas watched the hotel being built and then opened, EA's wife, Della, had to have the castle on the hill. Although it wasn't as nice as their house which had every modern convenience including heating and cooling, it would be the highest house in the area with a great view. EA offered to buy it but Alessio declined wanting to see his vision for a resort and housing subdivision realized.
A parcel of land separated Alessio's hotel from EA's meat packing plant and both men wanted it. Eventually the owner of the parcel sold the land to EA and he built sheep and cattle pens to house the animals before they were slaughtered. No one knows if it was the smell of manure on a warm afternoon or the economy or rumors or family strife that finally prompted Alessio to sell to an "unknown buyer" who turned out to be none other than EA Tovrea buying it in his wife's name.
They immediately changed the name to Tovrea Castle and moved in. Unfortunately, EA died within a year leaving Della to live there alone. She remarried in 1936 and they split their time between Prescott and the castle. After her second husband died, she moved back into Tovrea Castle where she lived with her English Mastiff guard dogs and 136 peacocks - yeah, she was a little eccentric.
After Della's death in 1968, Tovrea Castle remained part of the estate and was mostly vacant until it was purchased by the City of Phoenix in 1993. Through a collaborative effort between the Phoenix Historic Preservation Office and Phoenix Parks and Rec, an extensive restoration project costing more the $18 million was recently completed and in March 2012, the castle was opened to the public for the first time since 1932. The name of the castle was legally changed to Tovrea Castle at Carraro Heights, honoring both men. Grandchildren of both Alessio Carraro and EA Tovrea participated in the restoration and several remain active in the volunteer organization that runs the tours.
Thumb Up or Down: Up!!
Miles Round Trip: 33.4 miles
Miles To Date: 11,365.6 miles
Percent of List Completed: 100%!!!!!!!!!!
Date of This Trip: December 15, 2012
Yay! You made it to 100% of 100 items with no major disasters, but definitely a lot of fun and a great amount of discovered knowledge of AZ. Thanks for sharing your 100 items on your blog and for letting us share in some of your adventures.
ReplyDeleteIt was a most excellent adventure! Thanks for being a part of it!!
DeleteI always wondered about this place. Thanks for enlightening me.
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure, April! It's one of those places in Phoenix everyone has seen but most people don't know anything about. I'm so glad that it is now open to the public and will soon be available to rent for special occasions.
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