Carefree, Arizona

CAREFREE, ARIZONA Building with a rare touch of quality

by Joseph Stacey Photography by Peter Bloomer Carefree, Arizona, U.S.A., is an unincorporated community, conveniently remote from Phoenix and Scottsdale, in a general north by northeast direction.

Population count fluctuates between 1700 and 2500, subject to season. Residential and recreational elevation ranges from 2500 to 2900 feet above sea level.

It has its own U.S. Post Office and Zip Code (85331), of which it is rightly proud. And it has its own dedicated and busy Chamber of Commerce.

Nothing to set it apart from hundreds, even thousands, of similar communities across the country. Right?

Wrong. Carefree is especially distinctive. It's one of the very few naturally attractive realities to ever materialize from a land developer's dream. And that's because the developers themselves had a rare touch of quality. But that's getting ahead of the story.

The community had its beginnings back in 1955, when Tom Darlington and K. T. Palmer began the land acquisition which included part of a vast cattle ranch plus several other parcels of desert foothills country. Distinguished from typical Western entrepreneurs by a collective pool of class refinement, cultured contacts, appreciation of the exotic landscape, and a determined desire to make money -Big Money-they became the nucleus of a small but elite group dedicated to developing a quiet community where restrictions would be closely maintained, and where property values could only appreciate. A place where artists, authors, craftsmen, and dreamers would live and work in an environment where serenity and a feeling of closeness to heaven encouraged productive thinking. Roads were carefully plotted through the landscape-graceful easy curving paths around saguaros, boulders, trees, and rocks. Naturally, the development was named "Carefree." Road markers bore names "Stage Coach Pass," "Long Rifle Road," "Bloody Basin Road," and "Sidewinder Gulch."

Rules, restrictions and covenants were explained and clearly interpreted to each prospective buyer. No major plant or boulder would be displaced to accommodate a builder's needs. The result? In 1959 a two acre lot in the rocks sold for $4500. Today, with the same rocks undisplaced, the same real estate will bring at least $200,000. Later, Leslie Rhuart and Bert Snow joined Palmer and Darlington in promoting the developing Carefree concept on a nationwide scale. The buyer list began reading like a Who's Who in America.

Today, two of the finest golf courses in the land, meticulously maintained for year-round use, serve Carefree residents. And hard by one of them is a superb air strip for the use of those residents who commute to busy metropolises far to the east.

But Carefree's real spirit-the element that gives it its distinction-is the land itself. The land and the people who preserve it intact.

Carefree, of course, isn't for everyone, regardless of status or purpose. It is only for those who seek a place where sky and earth, man and nature, meet and commingle with a reasonable measure of live-and-let-live harmony: a testimony to the foresight, concern, and genius of its developers.

(Opposite page) From the living room of this Carefree, Arizona home, "built in the rocks" the view is unrestricted to the mountains in the distance. (Top) The pool is bridged over an arroyo in this Carefree residence: During rains, water runs unobstructed under the pool, patio, and house - in its original channel. (Above, left and right) Rooms in this Carefree home have outside boulders penetrating the wall and a rock bench built in among the boulders. A rock outcrop shares the living room in this home, which is designed to leave nature in no less a state of beauty than the homeowner found it.