Tlaquepaque

Sedona's Unique Mexican Village of Arts and Crafts Tlaquepaque

Tlaquepaque, the old-new Spanishcolonial arts and crafts village, has now become one of Sedona's leading commercial tourist attractions. In all the volumes of purple prose that have been written about it, much has been said about Abe Miller, the developer: how he conceived the idea for the village, bought the land on Oak Creek and broke ground in 1971; how seven years later, in 1978, the project was completed; and how it became an instant hit! But in all this reportage, one seldommentioned man has been the designer, a six-foot-three-inch gentle giant of an architect with a Mark Twain twang named Bob McIntyre.

When I tracked him down and chatted over coffee I told him how much I liked the village informality of his famous center.

How did it all happen? I asked. How did this gallery, shop, and restaurant complex manage to look so totally handmade in an age of precast walls, plastic plumbing, and tract houses? How did he achieve the effect of total "rightness" and the peaceful, but festive, serenity?

The clue, Bob McIntyre reckoned, is that Tlaquepaque (an Indian name meaning "best of everything," borrowed from a suburb of Guadalajara), creates "an oasis of beauty where a person can find magic privacy."

Privacy? In a bustling tourist center, where busloads of visitors stream in from Florida, California, and nearly every state in between?

Yes. To see how it works, you have to stroll across one of the tile-paved courts. When some point of visual excitement causes you to pause, look in all directions from this "station." Let the telescoping arches, cross-timbers, stairs, and balconies pull your gaze into the long perspectives - the dazzling distances and vistas.

The architect himself never tires of watching people weave through the patches of sunlight and shadow he created.

"They really flow here," he beamed, patting down an unruly tuft of chestnut hair. "Nobody walks abruptly!"

He is especially pleased that, under the spell of such a special place, visitors lose their vulgarity, pick up their own candy wrappers and cigarette butts, and control their dogs.

Even the automobile does not ruin the mood. Most of the parking has been shifted away from the buildings to an open lot on the other side of Soldier's Wash. And highway noise is screened off by an immense stone wall.

by Dr. Harry Wood

Inside you can sit on a wall or the edge of a fountain or climb a narrow handcrafted stairway into second-level shops with romantic balconies. Each has a wrought iron railing different from its neighbor. Or you can lean against a plump pillar about your size - with a slight paunch.

Why do the walls look so appealingly "soft?"

"In Old Mexico, they used mine tailings as the chief building material, made into a kind of cinder block. Everything, even massive square-chopped timbers and poles, had meaning. The heavy walls rang true. Any contrived falsity in a building is sensed by people. Buildings have to be honest to keep people content."

But how can modern workmen be

Shopping With an International Touch

by C. J. Burkhart Tlaquepaque is not an ordinary arts and crafts center. It is more of an exhilarating experience. Stroll down Calle Independencia, pause on Patio De Las Compañas, enjoy Plaza De La Fuente's dancing fountain... and be transported quickly and easily to Old Mexico and beyond.

Works by local artisans displayed in the more than 40 stores here rival the best efforts of craftsmen anywhere, wood carvings, ceramic and metal sculptures, pottery, handwoven cloth, pewter, stoneware, clothing, hand-blown and custom stained glass. But, in addition to the local treasures, there are beautiful and unique products from around the world, linens, rugs, tapestries, jewelry, porcelain, carved ivory, and cloisonnés.

Wandering through this Mexican-styled village, the first-time visitor's tongue gets tangled with the varied display of languages on signs, in shops, on street corners, plazas, and boutiques. They run from American Indian to Spanish to Italian and in between.Names like Ninibah, where the selection of Indian jewelry runs from old pawn to modern. Chichi delights shoppers with pewter and imported nutcrackers Casa De Artes displays displays limited edition lithographs and original art... and a shop called Artesania En Muebles, offers custom-designed furniture.

For dining with an international flavor there's Rincon Del Tlaquepaque for Mexican food or the Marco Polo Ristorante for Italian.But these are just a few of the things that give Tlaquepaque its unique texture, a rare expression of mood, color, and flavor that has become an integral part of Sedona's attractions.

(Right) Tlaquepaque's annual Christmas event is the "Festival of Lights," a celebration of the season featuring 3000 luminarias placed throughout the village, on patios, balconies, and walls. Bob Clemenz (Below) In early October the "Fiesta Del Tlaquepaque" takes place, an annual event with colorful banners, streamers, and piñatas, plus the music of strolling mariachi bands. William Jensen (Bottom) A central fountain brings to life a feeling of Old Mexico at Sedona's arts and crafts village. Bob Bradshaw

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Were induced to recover such ancient archi-tectural craft? It's a long but fascinating adventure story.

It properly begins with a middle-aged nature-loving Sedona couple named Harry and Ruby Girard. Bac in the 1950s, they bought a grove of ower-ing sycamores on Oak Creek and built a nursery. As their greenhouse pros-pered, they constructed a retaining wall on Oak Creek and filled in 15 feet of dirt around the trunks of the mighty trees.

The trees thrived. Soon the Girards planted Japanese maples, nectarines, cypress, mulberries, and banks of roses, geraniums, petunias, and tulips.

Abe Miller, a Nevada developer, bought the Girards' flowering paradise when they retired. He proposed to build a high-rise condominium on it. But when the word got around, his new Sedona neighbors reneged.

"I came here to get away from all that," one resident roared.

When Abe Miller realized a new vision was needed, he asked Bob McIntyre to go with him on a scouting trip to Mexico. Neither quite knew what they were looking for.

"We were trying to find out how buildings express and fulfill the emotional and artistic needs of people as well as their physical needs," Bob McIntyre explained.

Did Abe Miller's practical business approach dominate the artistic quest?

Bob McIntyre emphatically denied it. "The two of us grasped it together. We educated each other. We covered an immense part of Mexico at his expense.

Stark, barren Sonora taught us how buildings can move people in and out from sunlight to shadow, and we discovered the social function of beautiful flowers, fountains, tiles, and most of all, trees!"

The architect didn't sketch much. But he and Abe Miller photographed every-thing and lugged back cartloads of iron grillwork, carved doors, lanterns, clay pots, and benches.

"You can't copy hand-built structures," he sighed, flaring his nostrils as if re-sniffing the flavor of old villages.

"You have to be there and get the feel of the streets and shelters. Then you struggle to capture the spirit of the place."

Back in his Sedona drafting room, he got to work. The first problem, he knew, was to visualize the project for Abe Miller and his bankers.

"I didn't have much time to draw. But I explained how we had to line up our arcades and courtyards north and south, the way the old Spaniards did, kitty-corner to the prevailing winds. I told them how we wanted simplicity not austerity not barren neo-Spanish boxes, but living buildings that are pieces of sculpture."

Under the enthusiastic prodding of Abe Miller, the bankers bought the idea. The first experimental building, a large workshop, was begun in 1971.

Each arch was a different kind. A different molding cornered each room.

When they finished, the experimental structure was too charming to demolish, as they had expected to. Today it houses El Rincon Restaurante Mexicano.

Of prime importance in the planning was building in and protecting the magnificent sycamores. These trees became the “village fathers,” the resident druids, shedding their benign shade over the whole scene. In the succeeding seven years, the life-giving vitality of the trees was interwoven with great ingenuity amongst the beams and bal-conies and red-tile roofs. Today these “wise old men” in their white peon coveralls, patched at the elbows, are still at work shepherding the flocks of shoppers.

“Thank God for trees,” McIntyre exclaimed.

I tried to pin the architect down on how he managed to preserve the marvelous irregularity which gives Tlaquepaque its rustic charm.

He also eschewed symmetry. “It kills a building,” he said. But he had to be careful not to make the asymmetry too obvious.

He particularly chose his workmen. No professional stonemasons were hired, only amateur or self-trained plasterers who loved to be turned loose on a wall and watch it grow under their hands. If they weren't satisfied with a day's work, they were allowed to tear it down and start over. The result was that every nook turned into a work of art.

To keep the inspired momentum high, McIntyre himself worked alongside the crew every day.

“Working men sense it immediately if you haven't wheeled a wheelbarrow or dumped dirt or known hunger. But once they know you're one of them, they'll do their best for you.” He leaned back and smiled.

“We eyeballed the whole thing,” he said. “We kept the basic orders of columns and capitals, but allowed many variables.” Bob McIntyre is an unorthodox archi-tect. His architectural firm is a one-man operation. He does all his own design-ing, engineering, drafting, and field supervision. After completing his degree in architectural engineering at Louisiana State in Baton Rouge, he spent two years in military service in Japan and Korea. In November, 1960, he opened an office in Sedona and built several large mansions there and in Flagstaff. In 1963, he worked for an American firm in Tokyo, and spent his spare time investigating Japanese building methods and materials.

When he returned he intensified his study of buildings and building methods, including the Hopi ruins in northeastern Arizona. “They're so powerful visually, they seem to flow right through the gentle people sitting on them!” From the early village photographs of A. C. Vroman, and from the books and personal letters of William Lump-kinds of Santa Fe, he learned how wood, water, plants, and bonfires functioned in primitive societies.

“Buildings must be built to echo laughter, dancing, and singing. Can-dles, barrels, flickering fires, fountains, and flowers are what architecture is all about.” Fortunately, the Tlaquepaque Merchants Association has eagerly followed the folkways theme. Every year they sponsor events such as outdoor plays, Christmas festivals with mariachis and luminarios, fashion shows, flower festivals, and the art annuals of the Arizona Woodcarvers Association and the Sedona Art Center.

a key cultural center for Sedonans and for visitors from all over the West. One memorable evening, a local Juliet warbled from an old Spanish balcony, while a lanky Romeo below nearly clawed his way up a sycamore to get at her!

And where else but in Tlaquepaque could a director stage a play on witchcraft, keying performances to the appropriate “stages” of the moon? The “haunting” beauty of that experience still sends thrill-chills up the spines of Sedonans.

The fulfilled dream of Abe Miller and his architect, Bob McIntyre, becomes a greater drawing card every year. And visitors invariably blend immediately into the comfortable intimacy of its enfolding space.

That is what Bob McIntyre means when he speaks of Tlaquepaque's magic privacy.

There is not one false note in Tlaquepaque. “The only thing I miss is a friendly little burro to bray the time of day and remind tourists that this part of Sedona is both Old Mexican and Brighty country!”

These events have made Tlaquepaque

Bookshelf

Inquiries about any of these titles should be directed to the book publisher not ARIZONA HIGHWAYS.

THOMAS MORAN: WATERCOLORS OF THE AMERICAN WEST.

Text and Catalogue Raisonné by Carol Clark. University of Texas Press, Austin, TX 78712. 1980. 180 р. $25.00, hardcover.

Artists accompanied most of the important early 19th century governmental and private exploring parties into the West. Well-trained professionals such as English-born Thomas Moran chose watercolor for their medium because of its unique luminous qualities of tones and delicate gradations of color for portraying spectacular scenery and geologic variety of the West. Clark assesses Moran's position as a primary artist on F. V. Hayden's 1871 expedition to Yellowstone Country. Further, she analyzes the impact of Moran's work on Eastern patrons and viewers whose scientific interest and romantic curiosity were then at their height. Carefully outlined are the artist's early training and education, his career and western travels, and those who influenced and supported his work. His watercolors, pencil sketches, and opaque colors are presented in black and white and some color illustrations, with full descriptive data in the catalogue raisonné which follows. There is an extensive bibliography of works on Moran, his times and contemporaries, and both a general and a collectors' index. More than a catalogue of his paintings, this volume highlights Thomas Moran's contributions to the exploration and opening of the American West. For those readers who may have missed our review in the January, 1978 issue, we mention again OAK CREEK CANYON AND THE RED ROCK COUNTRY OF ARIZONA; A NATURAL HISTORY AND TRAIL GUIDE, by Stewart W. Aitchison. Stillwater Canyon Press, P. O. Box 1557, Flagstaff, AZ 86001. 1978. 142 p. $5.95, softcover, 75 mailing. Contains sketches of prehistory and history of the area and data on climate, geology, flora and fauna. There are road logs, trail information, plant and animal checklists, and suggested reading lists.

THOMAS MORAN OLD WEST ANTIQUES & COLLECTABLES.

Great American Publishing Co., 5513 Hwy. 290 West, Austin, TX 78735. 1979. 192 p. $22.95, hardcover. For many years there has been a universal fascination with the Old West, its characters and its memorabilia. In this publication five authorities trace the history and varieties of different types of frontier relics which have become collectors' items. These collectibles range from guns and holsters through numerous specimens of cowboy attire to old photographs and furnishings for saloons. To help the reader and collector there are a wealth of well-captioned, detailed photographs, and a separate three-page price guide. For those who prize antiques of the Old West, this book will be a good reference and addition to the library.

WILDERNESS MEDICINE.

By William W. Forgey, M. D. Foreword by Calvin Rutstrum. Indiana Camp Supply Books, Box 344N, Pittsboro, IN 46167. 1979. 124 p. $5.95, softcover, 75¢ mailing.

Here is an ideal handbook for Southwestern outdoor excursions. It describes how to prepare medical kits for prescription and nonprescription medications and discusses prevention, diagnosis and treatment of all kinds of illnesses and accidents which may occur in remote areas. There are diagrams and illustrations of surgical procedures, first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Of substantial help also are the bibliography of timely literature on medical preparation and treatment, prescription and nonprescription medical kit lists to cut out and use, and a very well organized instant reference clinical index.

DESERT HOUSING; BALANCING EXPERIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FOR DWELLING IN HOT ARID ZONES.

Kenneth N. Clark and Patricia Paylore, editors. Office of Arid Lands Studies, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85719. 1980. 339 р. $15.00, softcover.

In its desert environment, central and southern Arizona have more in common with other arid areas of the world than with other parts of the U.S. In an era of increasing need for housing, in the face of energy conservation, shortages of building materials, and rising costs, arid regions have had to heighten their awareness of appropriate desert-oriented architecture. The editors, a University of Arizona College of Architecture faculty member, and an arid lands expert, respectively, have gathered papers many from an earlier seminar by 16 specialists on important aspects of arid lands housing, such as landscape architecture, solar heating and cooling, design criteria, micro-climates, adobe, and earth-sheltered housing. There are excellent illustrations, photographs, diagrams, and bibliographies. For anyone aspiring to build or modify a dwelling in our desert Southwest, this vital book is a must.

The Ahsahta Press (Boise State University, 1910 University Dr., Boise, ID 83725) continues to be quite active these days, publishing more modern and contemporary poetry of the West. Among their latest offerings are the following titles. Songs by Charley John Greasybear strong, earthy hymns of life, death, nature, and people. Over DeSoto's Bones by Conger Beasley, Jr. an unusual poetic mix of history, mysticism, and surrealism, with sometimes raw, graphic and provocative views of events, persons, and animals in the southwest deserts like Juan Bautista de Anza and Yaqui Indian Pedro Alvarado and beyond to the Zoot Suit War and to Harry Truman. The Harkening Eye, by Hildegarde Flanner lyrical vignettes mostly of her rural California surroundings. To the Natural World, by Genevieve Taggard diverse, often metaphysical verses concerning places, people, and events in Hawaii, Washington and California, New England and Europe. Selected Poems of Hazel Hall, a relatively unknown invalid in Oregon who wrote during her short life in a realistic way about her immediate environment. Each handsome volume is modestly priced at $2.50 and will more than return the investment by enriching the reader's spirit.

Yours Sincerely

Comments and questions from around the state, the nation, and the world.

Dear Editor, Well you did it you really goofed this time. I have read Arizona Highways for 23 years, and March 1981 is the second issue that was actual waste. Don't do it again! Shopping centers, housing, and promoting business was totally disgusting. You haven't begun to cover Arizona. The back trails (along) the Mogollon Rim from Christopher Creek to Strawberry. all of the Blue Ridge area (in the White Mountains) and the numerous species of animals and birds. So get out of the concrete and blacktop traffic lights and living rooms those can be seen everywhere.

Dear Jesse, Not to worry . scenic photography has been the hallmark of Arizona Highways since 1925. We have no intention of changing. But there is more to this state than just saguaros at sunset, the Grand Canyon, the Mogollon Rim, and pretty flowers. For the more than 2 million people who live in Arizona's metropolitan areas, that issue only began to cover the daily life-style of which they are justifiably proud. As we noted in the March editorial, "This month's 'look at ourselves' is but a minor detour, because we feel that Arizona is more than just a state. it is a state of mind."

Dear Editor, I was stationed in Tucson from 1966 to 1968 . and have been receiving Arizona Highways ever since I left. I took many pictures, but none can match yours, especially the one of the Graham Mountains on page 24-25 of the January 1981 issue. Having been atop the fire-towers of both Webb and Heliograph peaks I can appreciate the grandeur of that scene. (but) as was stated in your March issue, the beauty and attractiveness of Arizona is exceeded only by the goodness and kindness of its people.

Dear Editor, Thought you might like to see my office wall. Most of the pictures are from Arizona Highways, which I saved over a period of years. The wall changes each season.

Dear Editor, I have just had the pleasure of seeing the January issue, and the feature on Fort Huachuca was of particular inter-est to me. In 1979 I had the pleasant experience of staying on the Fort as a guest for several days, when my eldest son was married to the daughter of an officer who is stationed there and when my short but memorable stay was over, went on to see more of your fascinating state. In my ignorance the name Arizona represented a remote, dusty, wasteland on the other side of the world vaguely connected with cowboy films which I saw in my childhood. I was soon reeducated. A trip to the Desert Museum (in Tucson) was wonderfully instructive, and I began to understand how varied is the environment and wildlife. .. I moved on to Flagstaff, so completely different, and toured Walnut Canyon, Meteor Crater, Montezuma's Well, the Petrified Forest, and that ultimate assault on the senses the Grand Canyon. I expressed my feelings to a colleague on my return to England, saying "Well, I've seen it, and I still don't believe it!"

I could stay for only three weeks in the USA, but motored almost 8000 miles. I saw many places, albeit somewhat superficially, but Arizona remains, for me, the most interesting and attractive.

Dear Editor, I've enjoyed Arizona here in the Midwest since I was a child. An aunt would send a gift subscription every year. Arizona Highways was always there to help me through reports in elementary and high school. It was also there for "dream" reading in college. Now I read it for fond memories of the great summer I experienced and my 6th grade students use it for reports and "dream" reading.

(Inside back cover) A light mist enhances the lush colors of autumn along the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon. For more about this colorful area, read "Oak Creek Country," beginning on page 14. Bob Clemenz (Back cover) Tlaquepaque, Abe Miller's 4.5acre arts and crafts center in Sedona, reflects the charm and mood of a Mexican village. Read more about Tlaquepaque, beginning on page 38. Bob Bradshaw

35mm COLOR SLIDES

This issue: 35mm slides in 2" mounts, 1 to 15 slides, 50¢ each, 16 to 49 slides, 45¢ each, 50 or more, 3 for $1.25. Allow six weeks for delivery. Address: Slide Department, Arizona Highways, 2039 West Lewis Avenue, Phoenix, Arizona 85009.