I started with nothing and still have most of it left.
Today’s HOT LIST Link ( click the pretty blue link below to see today’s picks ):
$4,299,000
10040 E HAPPY VALLEY RD 783, Scottsdale, AZ
”Classic Contemporary Southwest Elegance” defines this stunning custom home
Would you care for some dressing with your word salad? It’s over people. The search engines have won. We humans are just tossing dictionaries into Yahtzee tumblers and throwing down sentences with whatever incoherent string of consonants and vowels that happens to roll out. FLASHBACK: Saturday night our waitress asked us if we wanted a side of ranch dressing. The eleven-year-old replied, “No thanks, wing frosting is gross”. Four out of five voices in my head rolled their eyes, but the fifth found that combo creative. Wing frosting. Stolen.
This 5,893 sq ft neo-industrial-bauhaus-victorian-cape-cod-craftsman-art-deco-tudor-contemporary-missionary-style custom castle is a supersaturating symphony of seductive styles that is sustainably superfluous. There’s a lot going on here. Great stories are defined by memorable finishes, and what we find here is a failure to cut corners on this tale’s final chapters. Every inch of this home was considered, crafted, and cut-to-fit in a masterful mosaic of magnificent materials. The powder room’s glass counters floating over a bed of river rock, ice glazed Master shower walls mimicking the flagstone floors below, and the checkerboard mirror surrounds found dancing around the sink’s lip in the…”Buest Bath”. (Pic #34).
Buest Bath, and Beyond! Beautiful in any collection of unrelated words.
$739,000
2413 S El Dorado –, Mesa, AZ
“Private backyard looks out onto the lake and across to a park, not other houses”
Which is how this lakefront life-space makes today’s list. We have to play some defense here (take notes Raiders), as this home is priced a few Benjamin stacks beyond our typical budget desires for this neighborhood. It’s not cheap, but its secret sauce carries a value that’s difficult to define. What’s your privacy worth? What little privacy you have left, of course, now that your e-mails are machine memorized, your location is tracked and sold by your phone’s OS, and every purchase you make with a bank card is logged, listed, and harnessed by a cartel of digital dark forces intent on knowing your every wish, whim, and weekly want.
You know…the secret space, that small sliver of privacy you enjoy every so often in a quiet moment alone in the yard. Phone off, beverage in hand, silence for a companion. Lakefront homes typically pull this moment off with the grace of Queen Latifah exiting a hammock. The term “lakefront” indicates a home that backs to a body of water. Why the term “lakeback homes” never caught on is anybody’s guess. It’s the backyard that enjoys the sun’s glimmer sheen beyond, ducks power-skidding across tiny water crests, and the occasional “plomp” of a fish tasting air. The liquid rich views of the lake are intoxicating.
Sobriety arrives in the form of Fat Albert’s body double squeezed into a neon Speedo as he bends over, plumber’s crack style, to retrieve a fallen pool noodle, revealing the physical flexibility of a sausage stuffed accordion thanks to a fitness avoidance program whereby his last exercise ‘type’ activity was wrestling a fellow shopper for a Furby during a 1998 Holiday sale. He boards an elevator and the sign reads “Capacity: You”, and he’s also the starring distraction of your backyard view.
See…Lakeback properties generally look across a small patch of water at other lakeback properties. That’s them, right over there! It’s ant farm stuff and it can be quite jolting. But THIS lakeback house does NOT back to any other lakeback houses. None. That’s special. That’s Hot List worthy. You can march confidently into your frontal lake backyard wearing only the one-piece bathing suit you wish still fit, without any care in the world of a neighbor glancing over while giggling. Nobody is there.
Well, nobody except for the community playground. Thankfully children are innocent and would never make fun…of….oh…
I’ve made a grave mistake.
$5,700,000
35 ALTAIR AVE, Sedona, AZ
“Rising organically in a magnificent setting”
Nothing says “organic” quite like metal, glass, and stone! The architect of this all-natural, farm-raised glass house is Charles Van Block, who’s name speaks for itself. Blocks are square and flat, as are his designs. It’s always 90 degrees at a Van Block house, though we do note a few 45-degree angles in this home, suggesting someone found the plastic orange triangle hanging off the drafting board. Block’s designs litter Sedona as he is a local, a hippy, and he “Gets It”. He gets Sedona. The quickest distance between two points is simplicity. He gets THAT too.
Sedona is the most beautiful patch of God’s Creation in Arizona. If you are blessed to live here, you may as well be looking at your wondrous surroundings full time. Block’s designs are created for people who dare to live in glass houses. Generous windows line every room, because the climate is perfect, the view divine, and this architect recognizes that the best element on the property is not on the property at all. It’s the view. It’s the marvel. It’s that feeling of smallness when the shadows climb the surrounding towers of natural magnificence. Every day’s a show in Sedona. Much respect is due the architect that recognizes who the real star is. Bravo.
Monday Nugget: Life is like a roll of toilet paper; you’re either on an endless roll or taking crap from some butthole, but the end always arrives before you were ready for it. Be conscious of how you spend the squares this week.
0 Comments