Cave Creek and Carefree: The Nonidentical Twins

Twins. Cave Creek was founded in the 1870s as mining and ranching town, and its history teems with colorful characters. Carefree was the creation of two Scottsdale developers in 1955, and it teems with money. Neither, however, thinks of itself as a suburb of Phoenix, and there is fear and loathing on both sides of Black Mountain when the subject of the metropolis' inexorable spread arises. "You'll find a lot of professional, highstress management people who work in Phoenix and live out here," says Carl Bixler of Cave Creek. "They're attracted by the open landscape, the mountains, the peace. When you come home you don't need an hour to unwind. I used to work as a banker in Phoenix, and I would mentally set pieces of the office on cactus as I drove home. By the time I arrived, the stress would be gone."

It is easy to forget the city here. The drive out from Phoenix is a gradual climb, almost imperceptible except to desert rats who notice the increasing density of the vegetation. Rainfall averages 16.5 inches yearly, compared with 7.1 in the city, and summer temperatures run six degrees cooler. Cave Creek's elevation is 2,183 feet, double that of Phoenix. The cacti and assorted desert shrubs and trees grow so dense that people talk of the "desert forest." Cave Creek-the stream-runs year-round, an increasingly rare phenomenon in the Sonoran Desert. It tumbles out of the mountains north of town and nourishes a linear oasis a hundred feet wide-a canopy of sycamore and cottonwood trees shading grasses that grow six feet tall in summer.

Along the creek are ruins of shelters made of stacked boulders. These are the precursors of the town of Cave Creek. In 1870, the U. S. Army plowed a wagon road through here to link Fort McDowell, northeast of Phoenix, with Fort Whipple, near Prescott. Soldiers stayed overnight in these shelters, close to water and game.

The road opened the area to settlers and speculators. In 1873 the first mining claim was staked. Sheep and cattle ranchers followed. Cave Creek became a boomtown, and the mix of cowboys and prospectors, with their free and pioneering spirits, set the tone for the next century.

"Cave Creek has always attracted individualists," Betty Garrison, a former city councilwoman and unofficial Cave Creek historian, told me. "It's a laissez-faire place where 1960s hippies, artists, and retired people could all coexist. What they had in common was that they were all seeking something they couldn't find in a crowdand Phoenix is a crowd."

You'd expect Cave Creek to look funky, and you wouldn't be disappointed. The business strip is lined with establishments like "Crazy Ed's Satisfied Frog," a neo-Wild West steakhouse that serves burgundy in mason jars. There's no downtown; Cave Creek didn't incorporate until 1985, and in any event many residents would have viewed a nice, neat town plan as totalitarian. As Betty Garrison said, people who settled here often were seeking something they couldn't do in a crowd.

Such as keeping horses. On a weekend morning, dozens of Cave Creek's 2,300 residents are riding through the desert

Downs still lives in Carefree, although he commutes to New York and globe-trots for American Broadcasting Company's "20-20," for which he is co-host. No, he says, it's not a hectic life; precisely the opposite. "We recently had a houseguest, and on the second day he asked, "Well, this is all very nice, but where's the action?"

I said, 'The action is in New York, and that's why I'm here.'" Downs, a genial man who enjoys talking about his life, goes on. "There's something about the desert that appeals to me. I've been asked, why do you want to live here when you're a sailor? The answer is that there's a similarity: the sea and the desert are both wildernesses. "We like the people, the opennessit seems more democratic, with a little 'd,' than most of the places we've lived. In this community, there's no distinction made among people regarding income or other circumstances; you're judged on more basic values."

Carefree architect Fred Linn Osmon agrees. For all Carefree's wealth (the chamber of commerce reported in 1985 that 64 percent of the households had $50,000-plus annual income), he says the town is refreshingly unpretentious. "Most of the people here are not social in the Palm Springs sense. They want to travel, enjoy their homes, and be left alone." Downs recalls that there were 105 houses in Carefree when he built his hillside retreat. Today the population is about 1,600 and growing-rapidly. You'd expect Carefree to look anything but funky, and you'd be right. It's prim. Tidy. Meticulously groomed. Osmon

CAVE CREEK Carefree

rails against what he calls the "Disney Desert" of Carefree, where the dense, scruffy, natural flora is replaced by a designer's too-orderly idea of what an arid landscape should be. Downtown Carefree is bou-tique city. There are candle shops, yogurt shops, Western jewelry shops, and stock-brokers' offices. Wine is not served here in mason jars.

Luxurious new developments are everywhere, and a resort, The Boulders, has attracted national attention.

The Boulders opened in January of 1985, and within days, the Los Angeles Times' travel editor, Jerry Hulse, wrote that it was "the conversation piece of the season." In architectural terms, it was more than that. Not since Frank Lloyd Wright's nearby Taliesin West, begun in 1937, had there been a major work of architecture that embraced the Sonoran Desert landscape so sensitively.

The gently sensual resort lies at the foot of a tall pile of 1.4 billion-year-old boulders, fractured and "spheroidally weathered," as geologists say. Architect Bob Bacon drew an idea from it. "The neat thing about the pile is the spaces in and among the rocks," he says. "There are tall spaces, short spaces, narrow spaces, and inspirational spaces. We wanted to create the same kinds of spaces in the buildings. So you'll get a little canyon effect-walk through a narrow space and suddenly it opens up on you. Walk the other way and it's a whole different experience."

buildings. So you'll get a little canyon effect-walk through a narrow space and suddenly it opens up on you. Walk the other way and it's a whole different experience."

The 120 guest “casitas” are scattered around the rocks and surrounding desert in little pueblo-like clusters. Bacon says he let the land dictate their sites and orientation, rather than imposing his will on the land. “Where most developments fall down, they don’t work with the land. They scrape a pad out, the trees go with it, and if there’s a rock in the way they blast it. I would like to think that what we’ve done here will influence the future of everything from here to Scottsdale.” With that, Bacon summarizes the problem both Carefree and Cave Creek are struggling with. Nowhere in Arizona is the conflict between development and preservation as fiercely debated as it is here.

The houses on Black Mountain are an example. Bill Empie recalls that there was some grumbling when the road first was built and the homesites graded. “But now, I think the homes are appreciated as more of an amenity,” he says. Many disagree; they feel the mountain should have been left untouched. Berniece Falling Leaves said the people on the mountain are the cause of the spirit’s troubles.

Cave Creek’s zoning controversy two years ago was another example. The newly incorporated town had to have a zoning code in place by July 1, 1987. After a series of public hearings, the planning and zoning commission proposed a code that would restrict the number of horses kept on a piece of property, limit the amount of space that could be disturbed for horses or buildings, and require a setback for buildings and corrals. Residents converged on the town council and the planners in hearings held on June 4 and again on June 11. The Rev. Marshall Fancher, chairman of the Cave Creek Conservation Committee, argued that Cave Creek had a responsibility to future generations to preserve as much of the land as possible in its natural state. This ethic collided with the traditional Western notion that a person’s property is his to use as he pleases. Opponents also wondered what was so “unnatural” about keeping horses in the desert.

“The opponents were very, very upset,” recalls Linda Ritchie, publisher of the Foothills Sentinel. “At the last public hear-ing, about 250 people showed up. Eight stood up in favor of the ordinance.” As a result of the up-roar, the plan-ning and zoning commission recommendedand the town council agreedthat Cave Creek simply adopt the Maricopa County zoning ordinance, with some minor adjustments.

Golf likewise is both popular and controversial. There are eight courses in Carefree, Cave Creek, and north Scottsdale. They delight the people who are moving here to play on them. And they appall people who see them as foreign environments imposed on a fragile desert.

English-born Geoffrey Platts, an erudite disciple of Thoreau who lives near Care-free in a one-room cabin without electricity, is one of these. When Jack Nicklaus showed up two years ago to dedicate a course he had designed, Platts, a solitary picket, stood by the entrance holding a sign, GOLF IS KILLING THIS DESERT.

The golfing goes on. So does Plattswriting a column in the Sentinel, testifying at hearings involving preservation and conservation issues, and generally serving as the nagging conscience of Carefree and Cave Creek. “They say in preservation campaigns there are no victories, only holding actions,” he says. “All I can do is quote Schweitzer and say that 'Any work done from the heart is done in faith.' You can only hope that by continuing an advocacy for the environment, by forever needling and attacking, you can raise the consciousness of the people.” Possibly so. A few months later, the Cave Creek School District needed to blade some desert for a new building site. Before the bulldozers came, students at Black Mountain Elementary School and Cactus Shadows High School were excused from classes for two half-days to help transplant trees, shrubs, and cacti that were in the way. “It wasn’t a matter of free labor,” explains Jeri Robertson, secretary for the district superintendent and governing board. “The teachers felt the work would improve their environmental sensitivity.”

We're going up Black Mountain again, this time the hard way-on foot. We're staying as far away from the mountainside houses as possible because, technically, we're trespassing. The top of Black Mountain is a county-owned nature preserve, but all the land ringing it is privately owned. There's no trail to the summit.

The north slope is a rich desert forest of saguaro, staghorn and teddy bear cholla, barrel and hedgehog cacti, jojoba, and brittlebush. We pass ecosystems only a few feet square: wherever the slope dramatically steepens so that the mountain shades itself from the drying winter sun, the ground is carpeted with damp winter nut grasses and the rocks with moss. We see pack rat nests and the occasional bounding rabbit. In truth, I would rather visit the mountain than build on it, because I think mountains should be left wild and free. But I can understand the allure of living on it.

WHEN YOU GO...

My hiking companion, Cave Creek photographer Jerry Sieve, says a recent survey found 30 to 40 deer living on Black Mountain. In 1979, he adds, someone

CAVE CREEK Carefree

sighted a mountain lion crossing Cave Creek Road, loping toward the mountain. Neither of us voices the thought-it would seem awkwardly maudlin-but we hope the lion still lives here. That would mean that the spirit of Black Mountain also survives, and that communities of humans and the Sonoran Desert may yet find that they can coexist in peace.

Getting there: Carefree and Cave Creek are about an hour's drive from central Phoenix via Cave Creek Road or 45 minutes from midtown Scottsdale via Scottsdale Road. For fly-in visitors, there's the private Carefree Airport; call (602) 488-3571.

Where to stay: Accommodations are scarce: there's one small motel, The Tumbleweed Hotel, in Cave Creek; there is one luxury resort in Carefree, The Boulders, and it closes during the summer. The resort has 27 holes of golf, a tennis park, and swimming. Telephone (602) 488-9009. There are numerous accommodations in nearby communities.

What to see and do: Attractions in Cave Creek include Frontier Town, a mock-up of a Western town with shops, restaurants, and a wedding chapel. The Cave Creek Museum, which documents the area's prehistory as well as its last 120 years, is open afternoons Thursday through Sunday, November through May. Downtown Carefree is all about shopping: there are several dozen boutiques, galleries, and restaurants. Most stores are open daily, the year around. The annual Carefree-Cave Creek Fiesta Days come in early April, and include a Saturday parade and a two-day rodeo. The Christmas Pageant, a live nativity play, takes place annually on the side of Black Mountain under December's full moon. For more information: Write or telephone the Carefree-Cave Creek Chamber of Commerce, Box 734, Carefree, AZ 85377; (602) 488-3381.