Phoenix Homesteads Historic District: New Deal adobe houses between 26th and 28th streets

At a glance

The two parts of the Phoenix Homesteads Historic District

Phoenix Homesteads is two places under one name. The project was built in two phases with different architects, plans and lots, and the City district today is two irregular areas north of Thomas Road and south of Osborn Road, between 26th and 28th streets. Which part a house is in decides the size of the lot and the shape of the house, so start there.

Phase one homesteads: Rural Homes of Arizona

The southern 40 acres were laid out in forty farm lots of roughly three-quarters of an acre, each planned for a house, a garage, a small orchard, a chicken run and hen house, a cow lot and shed, and fruit and vegetable gardens. Robert T. Evans designed the houses from three basic plans on a budget under $2,000 a unit. If you want land, this is the half to watch.

Phase two homesteads: Arizona Part-Time Farms

The northern houses came a year later, on narrower lots set around a shared common area. Vernon DeMars, the Resettlement Administration's supervising architect, drew two plans, and the 35 houses were finished in a little over five months.

Earll Drive houses between the two homestead areas

The two parts of the district are separated by 600 to 900 feet of later houses on Earll Drive, built on what was the project's cooperative farmland and pasture. Those houses are outside the historic district, so check which side of that gap an address is on.

Adobe houses in the Phoenix Homesteads Historic District

Every original building here is adobe, made from blocks pressed on site at about 2,000 a day. That is the fact that shapes owning one. Of the 60 houses built, 45 survive inside the district.

Adobe walls on a homestead house

Phase-one houses combine Pueblo Revival massing and rough plaster walls with Mission Revival details. Under the City's HP rules, repairs in kind and paint need no permission, but a change of material does, so patching adobe with adobe is simple and covering it with something else is a review. Before you buy, ask the inspector to look at the base of the walls and the plaster; the adobe section of the inspection guide has the rest of the checklist.

Stone slab and adobe-insulated roofs in the homesteads

Phase-one roofs sit on heavy timber framing and were originally stone slab. One house on Pinchot Avenue, the L. R. Cady House, still has its stone slab roof. Phase-two roofs are low-pitched and heavy-beamed, insulated with six inches of adobe. Tell your insurer what the roof is made of before you ask for a quote; insuring an older Arizona home sets out what else they ask.

Wood casements and battered chimneys on homestead houses

Phase-one houses have multi-light wood casement windows and battered chimneys, wider at the base than the top. The casements are original fabric, so repair keeps the house as it was listed.

A New Deal project four miles from downtown Phoenix

Phoenix Homesteads was a New Deal subsistence homestead project. The federal government bought an 80-acre parcel, the Baxter Tract, four miles northeast of downtown Phoenix, and divided it into homestead lots with room for an orchard, poultry, a cow and gardens beside each house. By fall 1935 the national Division of Subsistence Homesteads had authorized 58 projects, of which 43 were built. This was the first demonstration project of its kind in Arizona and one of only four in the western United States, with El Monte and the San Fernando Valley in California and Longview, Washington.

Oversight moved from the Division of Subsistence Homesteads to the Resettlement Administration in 1935, the Farm Security Administration in 1937 and the Federal Public Housing Authority in February 1942. The Phoenix Homesteads Association was incorporated in August 1936 as Arizona's first resettlement "farm association", and in 1948 it paid its debt to the United States in full, ending the federal interest in the property. Its 1987 National Register nomination calls the association the oldest continuously operating homeowners association in the Salt River Valley.

Trees and the common area in the Phoenix Homesteads Historic District

The landscape here was planned along with the houses, and much of what makes the district look the way it does is planted.

Aleppo pines on Pinchot Avenue in the homesteads

Pinchot Avenue, in the southern part, is lined with mature Aleppo pines, Washington palms and ash trees, and the tunnel of Aleppo pines is the street's defining feature. Old trees over an adobe house are worth an arborist's look before closing.

Fruit trees on homestead lots

The lots were planted with peaches, apricots, plums, pears, figs, citrus, pomegranates, grapes and berries, and many still had fruit and citrus trees in 1987. The association says its memberships support its tree program, irrigation and shared upkeep.

The homestead common area and community building

In the northern part, the community building in the common area served as the Resettlement Administration's Arizona management headquarters in 1937 and hosted a nursery school, 4-H, bridge and drama clubs. The association still lines the streets with luminarias for the holidays and holds a fall Breakfast in the Park and Dog Show at The Park at Flower and 27th.

Buying in the Phoenix Homesteads Historic District

The National Register listed Phoenix Homesteads on October 13, 1987, at the state level of significance, and added about 0.2 acres in October 2010. The City put it on its register with HP overlay zoning in January 1990, with a period of significance of 1935 to 1937. Streets on the City map include Pinchot Avenue, Flower Street, Earll Drive, Avalon Drive, 26th Street, 26th Place, 27th Street, 27th Place and 28th Street.

In 1987 the district counted 46 primary buildings (34 contributing, 12 not) and 41 outbuildings (37 contributing, 4 not). The outbuildings count: a homestead garage or shed can be historic in its own right, so treat it as part of the house when you plan changes. The HP zoning guide explains which changes get staff sign-off and which go to a hearing, and National Register listing is what opens the incentives in the historic property tax guide.

No public figure prices a homestead. Census tract 1108.02 has a median owner-occupied value of $506,300 and ZIP code 85016 has $564,900, but the tract's typical home was built in 1957, two decades after these adobes. Compare recent sales inside the district, and split them by phase, since a phase-one house on three-quarters of an acre and a phase-two house on a 60-foot lot are different purchases.

Phoenix Homesteads or Cheery Lynn

Both districts sit on Flower Street and Earll Drive. Cheery Lynn, at 16th Street, is a 1928 speculative subdivision of brick and stucco cottages on 60-foot lots. The homesteads, about ten streets east, are federal adobe houses from 1935 to 1937, some on lots 300 feet deep against 75 to 135 feet in Cheery Lynn. Choose Cheery Lynn for a conventional 1930s cottage, and the homesteads for adobe and land. If you would rather have a 1940s brick Ranch built with FHA lending, see Campus Vista, and the list of all 37 Phoenix historic districts covers the rest. Joe Janus can pull recent Phoenix Homesteads sales and lot sizes for you: contact Joe.

Phoenix Homesteads Historic District FAQs