From orange groves to very special neighborhood

01/30/2012

Written by Christina Sampson

Today at Pierce Park, located near Oak and 44th Streets, orange trees sprinkle the park’s large expanses of grass that surround the tennis courts and playground. Those trees, more than anything else, are a symbol of how and why Arcadia began.

(More photos, click here).

When the Salt River Reclamation Project was initiated during the first decade of the twentieth century, developers in the area saw a chance to turn irrigable land into rural developments for the upper crust. The plan was to encourage wealthy people to buy large plots of land and develop them into citrus groves.

This was easier said than done, however. By the time individual plots of land were bought, surveyed and consolidated so they could be parceled into lots in 1915, the only development that resulted was the Arcadia Subdivision, according to the Arcadia Camelback Special District Plan, published in 1999.

But even then, Arcadia still hadn’t quite begun.

The first formal development was named Citrus Homes, which was recorded in 1915. Citrus Homes used the Arizona Canal for a southern border, 56th Street was its eastern border, and Camelback Road and Lafayette Boulevard formed the development’s northern rim. Citrus Homes’ 25 lots ran from north to south and all bordered the canal.

It wasn’t until four years later, though, in December of 1919, that the first Arcadia development was recorded. The Jordan, Grace and Phelps Land Company and the Charles Keafer firm had big plans for the area encompassed by Scottsdale Road to the east, Rockridge Road to the north, 44th Street to the west and sharing Citrus Homes’ border on Lafayette Boulevard. First they split the area in half at 56th Street, with the area to the east consisting of 23 blocks in which each block was further split into four lots of 10 acres. To the west, 18 blocks were mostly cut into eight lots of 5 acres each.

To ensure that the new neighborhood’s residents would be wealthy, the companies mandated that houses had to cost more than $5,000 to build ($66, 417.88 in today’s money). The idea was that the lots would be sold as future, privately-owned citrus groves.

Trees need water, however, and the canal only provided it to residents on lots south of Camelback Road. To solve that problem, the developers teamed up with Seymour Jordan and formed the Arcadia Water Company in 1919. The foreman of the company lived in what is currently the Shemer Art Center. By 1924, 15 miles of concrete pipe laid beneath Arcadia, ostensibly ready to water the wealthy landowners’ future citrus trees.

The 1920s weren’t easy on the economy, however, and Arcadia was no exception. By the mid-1920s, financing for the area had fallen through, and by the time the dust settled the area had many different owners and was where several subdivisions had sprung up. These included Glencoe Highlands, Arcadia Estates, Arcadia Replatted, Hacienda Allenda and finally, in 1931, Alta Hacienda.

The desire to attract the wealthy had not changed, however. The minimum price to build a home in Arcadia Replatted shot up to $10,000 ($126,693.06 today), and any wood buildings had to be painted immediately. Arcadia began to grow and evolve.

Among the early settlers were Ruth Wendell, founder of the Phoenix Crippled Children’s Hospital. She lived in a 1935 home on the southwest corner of Lafayette and Avenida del Puente after moving to Phoenix from the Globe-Miami area.

Several resorts emerged in the 1930s, including the Cook Mansion, which eventually became today’s Royal Palms Resort and Spa (recently restored to more than its former glory). Elizabeth Arden also built her Main Chance retreat around this time.

By the mid-1950s, Arcadia’s landscape had shifted again. The area east of 64th Street now was in Scottsdale.

It was also around this period that residential housing began to spring up. In the Mountgrove Area, this was a bit tricky as homes were built in locations carefully selected to preserve the Sphinx Date Palms. By 1960, the Montgrove Property Owners Association had finally succeeded in keeping the area around the date processing plant (on Lafayette Street between 46th and 47th Streets) residential.

Since the 1960s, many of the original homes remain, albeit renovated. But the passing decades changed the neighborhood, too. In the 1980s, the Phoenician Resort became Arcadia’s own five-star resort. And Arcadia did not escape the housing boom of the 1990s, either, with the birth of two more subdivisions. Arcadia Estates (in the southeast of Arcadia) and Royal Palms Estates have replaced the Royal Palm executive golf course.

Today, houses comfortably abut many small or local businesses, and the area is quiet and known for its good schools and quality housing. And as all Arcadians know, it’s a place with a rich history where people are proud to live.