The Real Story Behind the Casas Adobes Area

The Casas Adobes area of Tucson is bordered by Thornydale on the west, Orange Grove on the south, First Avenue on the east, and Overton Road on the north. This area is home to over 50,000 people, many of whom would not consider living anywhere else in Tucson because of its unique character. The history of Casas Adobes is pretty interesting.

It was started by an Italian man named Sam Nanini, who hailed from Chicago but was born in Tuscany. Like many Tucsonans of the early to mid 1900’s, he moved here for health reasons. His wife suffered from bronchial asthma. Nanini owned a brickyard and had a background in construction. In the 1950’s, he began utilizing his bricks in aptly named subdivisions: Casas Adobes Estates, Casas Adobes Heights and Casas Adobes Country Club Estates. In Spanish, “casas” means “houses,” and “adobe” is a type of brick. Traditionally, adobe bricks are made from sand or clay, and straw or other fibrous materials, which are shaped into bricks using frames and dried in the sun. According to Peter Vocak, an unofficial Casas Adobes historian, “Italians’ had a kind of adobe quite different from our Mexican one. They were quite dark and heavy.”

In 1954, one of Nanini’s most well known developments opened its doors — Casas Adobes Plaza. A student of Tucson’s famed architect Josias Joesler designed Casas Adobes Plaza, which is on the southwest corner of Ina and Oracle roads. He used Nanini’s bricks, which are still visible on the outer wall of Wild Oats.

In the 1950’s, Casas Adobes Plaza was at the far outskirts of town. Most people thought of Casas Adobes as a stop on the way to Phoenix. In those days, the area was known for its 200 acres of citrus trees and date palms, and was the heart of Tucson’s citrus industry and the reason for the now busy “Orange Grove Road.” By the early 1960’s, the Casas Adobes Plaza had become the only place in Tucson where there was high-end shopping.

There is, of course, more history to the Casas Adobes area. For example, the spot now occupied by the Mission Palms apartment complex was once a luxury guest ranch, owned by a women named Leonie Boutall. The ranch attracted many famous people.

Throughout the 1960’s, Nanini developed mostly one-acre parcels of land and built single-story homes, linking them all together by winding roads. There’s a popular saying in the Casas Adobes area: “There’s not a straight street in here.” And that may ring true. The beauty in that plan is that the homes gain more exclusiveness because the roads were not set up in a grid- like fashion.

The Casas Adobes area offers many amenities that residents of the northwest side most likely could not live without. It features three shopping centers, two resorts, the Foothills Mall, and Northwest Medical Center. The latter two have been open since the early 1980’s. Casas Adobes is a unique part of Tucson, and those looking to purchase a property in the area should realize the inherent value of the location. Here you can have an acre lot, secluded from the surrounding major streets. If you are in search of a more custom feel for your housing needs on some land, with easy traveling distance to daily conveniences, then the Casas Adobes neighborhood and greater area should be very seriously considered. It is one of the jewels of Tucson’s northwest side.

For more information, please visit the Casas Adobes page on Michael’s website.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 3:14 pm and is filed under Casas Adobes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.