We left San Mateo at 7:30am on March 16, 2000 in a rented minivan full of plants, cats, and the few things we needed to tide us over after the movers carted away all our stuff on the 14th. We arrived at our new home at 1am on March 17th.
The basic details:
It's a 6 bedroom, 3.5 bath, 3200 sq. ft. Santa Fe Style home on a private and secluded acre of wild desert. It has lots of saltillo tile (Mexican clay floor tiles), a gorgeous
stone tortoise mosaic in the formal entry way, vegas (rough-huned beams), a double-sided wood/gas fireplace, and french or sliding glass doors opening onto garden portals (a style of covered porch) off of every room. The northeast side of the house has a long portal flanking a beautiful flagstone patio with a copper soaptree yucca sculpture fountain and a view of the Santa Catilina Mountains. We've added several bird feeders around the patio and regularly get several species (see the bird page for more details). The southwest side sports a *huge* ozoneated hot tub (which must hold at least 15 strangers, or a couple dozen close friends). We hope to add a pool in the next year or two. Two of the bedrooms and one bath are in the form of wheelchair-accessable guest quarters with a full kitchenette. (Okay, maybe these details weren't just the basics, but I'm a trained professional, I can't help it!)
It's located in the Catalina Foothills on the north side of Tucson (near 1st Ave and Orange Grove--outside of the city limits) and has lots of local wild life. The night we were there meeting with the owners after signing the contract, a family of six javelinas came trotting down the driveway. It was *very* exciting. (For those unfamiliar with Sonoran Desert denizens, javelina are collared peccary (tayassu tajacu), which resemble wild pigs. Since that night we've had many visits. Here's a picture of one on our patio (along with other bird and amimal visitors).
There are lots of cool colorful birds--cardinals, gila woodpeckers, several species of hummingbirds, phainopepla, gambel's quail, finch, thrashers, sparrows--and some less exciting ones like white-winged, inca, and mourning dove... the critters page has pictures of some.
A desert tortoise named Antonio lives near by and emerges every summer, and a bunch of "instant toads" live on the property too. Apparently, the toads bury themselves and dehydrate, and when the summer monsoons come, the yard fills with croaking softball-sized toads!!! . [Note, 9/10/00: we never saw either this summer :( ] [Note, 9/12/00: I spoke too soon--Antonio walsed on through our patio this morning!] Coati and coyotes are also not uncommon visitors. [Note, 10/23/00: we have yet to see a coati or coyote on our property, though we did see a coyote down the street a bit once.]
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Here are some 360° panoramic images of our house that we downloaded from the realtor's site. They were taken while the previous owners lived here, so the stuff isn't ours. The virtual tour camera that these were taken with make it look a little wonky--elongated and roundish, but you'll get the idea. Scroll through the views with the browser scroll bar.
(There is more than a 360° view so you can see an uninterrupted view of everything.)
Inside: Living Room and Entry and Kitchen, Dining Room, and Library
Outside: The "Front" and The Fountain Patio
The reservation desk is always open, but bring cash because we don't take VISA or American Express ;)
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