Joesler homes & Catalina Foothills on National Register of Historic Places

I just received the fall newsletter of the Catalina Foothills Association where I live, and in it there's an article by Tom Pew with exciting news for Joesler homeowners and admirers of the homes he built in the Catalina Foothills.

"A Win, Win for Joesler Homeowners"
by Tom Pew
   Own a Joesler home? If so you and your neighborhood - in fact the whole Catalina Foothills com­munity, where there is a unique concentration of Josias Tho­mas Joesler designed homes - will soon be coming in for a singular recognition that few buildings and even fewer com­munities ever receive.

In response to continued homeowner interest in preserv­ing the legacy of the Joesler/Murphey vision for the Catalina Foothills and elsewhere, the Pima County Resources and Historic Preservation and the University of Arizona College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture have secured funding and staff to work with property owners towards the goal of making it possible for Joesler home owners to apply for the voluntary inclusion of their homes on the National Register of Historic Places. Furthermore the effort to recognize these buildings and their environs is not limited to the Foothills area, but will be available on a county-wide, indi­vidual-home basis.

As a part of the qualifying and nominating process, homes will have to meet standards that will include, but not be lim­ited to, the character and natural characteristics of the Catalina Foothills, as well as the quality and preservation of the archi­tectural integrity of the home itself and any additions or al­terations that may have been made over the years to the home and the native vegetation.

Joesler home owners who volunteer their property for consideration for inclusion in the Register of Historical Places and who successfully meet the standards and criteria will become eligible for potential benefits of the State Property Tax Reclassification Program for Historic Properties.

The Catalina Foothills Estates "Community of Haciendas" remains a treasured legacy of the visionary work of architect Josias Joesler, and Helen and John Murphey. Here they created a unique sense of place by the careful siting of homes on large lots when land on the outskirts of Tucson seemed limitless.

By doing so they preserved the natural landscape, main­tained views, and built homes with a regionally appropriate design aesthetic reflective of a "Mexican style" community in a rural environment.

In spite of the huge influx of people moving into Tucson since that era a remarkable number of these homes, along with the property around them, have been nurtured and pro­tected by generations of owners who have moved here from elsewhere and grown to love and appreciate the desert, real­izing that the quality and style of Joesler homes-quaint and old-fashioned in some ways-is something worth protecting and valuing for future generations and for the character of the community at large.

Spearheading the effort at the county and professional architectural level are Linda Mayro, Pima County Cultural Resources Manager, and R. Brooks Jeffery, University of Arizona Preservation Studies Coordinator. No newcomers to this effort, Mayro and Jeffery compiled a comprehensive listing of Joesler and Murphey public and private buildings and pub­lished a small but beautiful resource book on this topic in 1994, and, as Jeffery put it this week, "We have been work­ing towards this end ever since- and at last the moment is at hand."

Mayro says, "As for funding, I'm happy to say that we have that rounded up, and both the funding and the staff time are available to complete and produce the multiple nomina­tions that will make the voluntary protection of these unique building possible for now and for the future."

County Supervisor Ann Day, whose district includes the Catalina Foothills, told the newsletter that: "I think it would be a great honor to Tucson's master architect Josias Joesler to place his beautiful homes on the National Register of His­toric Places. Joesler really was responsible for shaping and defining the look and character of the most beautiful area in my district, the Catalina Foothills.

"It's a win-win for a Joesler owner and our community at large: it provides a tax break for the property owners by giv­ing them a reduction in primary property taxes, and it ben­efits our community by providing an incentive to maintain historic buildings in our community," Day concluded.