Through the first decades of Phoenix's history, housing was built on an almost artisanal level. Sometimes one at a time. Other times a dozen or two. Along with such fashions as the bungalow and period revival style, this is what gives the historic districts north of downtown their unique quality. It took decades, for example, for today's Willo to be filled with homes.
After World War II, heavy demand for housing — hardly any had been built during the Depression and World War II — and federal loan guarantees sparked a nationwide residential building boom. This was especially true with new suburbs, built on the Levittown mass-production model. With builders such as Ralph Staggs and John Hall in the lead, subdivisions just outside the 17 square miles of the city began to grow. By the mid-1950s, subdivisions averaged 180 houses, according to historian Philip VanderMeer.
In 1954, John Frederick Long began quietly buying nearly 70 farms west of Phoenix. A Phoenix native, Long worked on the family farm, spent four years in the Army Air Forces during World War II, and came home to several failures as an aspiring businessman. In 1947, he married Mary Tolmachoff, who also grew up on a farm in the Valley. With a GI loan and some savings, they built a house on a lot on north 23rd Avenue.
Before even moving in, the Longs received an offer to sell the house for almost double the cost of $4,200 in materials. This launched him as a homebuilder, first on a very small scale. But with Phoenix growing — a sharp post-war recession had been reversed by the infusion of Cold War defense spending — Long had a vision for something much bigger.
In 1955, John F. Long officially launched Maryvale, named after his wife. It would be Phoenix's first suburb and a precursor of the "master planned community," although with important differences. Long was influenced by Levittown and other mass-production ventures. But he added his own distinctive innovations. For example, he hired the Austrian-born California architect Victor Gruen to give more flair and choice to the basic Phoenix ranch house.
Contrary to the stick-built tract houses of the era (and today), Long used Superlite cinderblocks — he created his own materials research center to find the right combination to make houses both affordable and durable. His modular system for such things as roof trusses, walls, and custom cabinets were pioneering in the industry.
By 1959, Long's company had built 2,577 houses. Eventually it would complete 25,000 in Maryvale. They were constructed by union workers in numerous skilled trades. Long had such good labor relations that the Valley AFL-CIO named him Man of the Year in 1958. He also wanted Maryvale to have its own shopping center, hospital, parks, schools, and civic groups — all developed quickly.
For example, Maryvale Terrace Shopping Center was completed in 1956. Maryvale High School opened in 1963. Long himself was a workaholic who inserted himself into every aspect of the sprawling project. According to one story, Mary wanted a new house but John was perpetually busy with work. So she bought one and, one day, moved to it, leaving John to find out the hard way that he had a new home.
As I've written before, my uncle was one of many who bought directly from Long, sitting on the site in his trailer. The house was around the 5000 block of Pinchot, new, with a lawn, swimming pool, and all-electric kitchen. I was envious of everything, even the curvilinear streets with only one every quarter mile giving access to the major arterial. Our house in what is now Willo was old (built in 1924), seemed down on its luck with those thick Spanish Colonial walls and a gas stove and range. My mother was not impressed. Among other things, she noted that Maryvale residents had to drive to and from work with the sun in their eyes. Even so, it was extremely popular. And as years passed, it was graced with trees, lawns, and loving landscaping.
One of the big drivers of Maryvale was federal loan guarantees and low mortgages from the FHA and VA. This enabled buyers, especially veterans such as my uncle, to buy homes for almost nothing down and with very low interest rates. It was also the zenith of the American middle class, and most of the new jobs in Phoenix paid well This had its dark side, however. Federal policy from the New Deal until the Fair Housing Act of 1968 often prohibited African-Americans and in some cases Hispanics from buying in the new post-war white suburbs. As a result, Maryvale was nearly all white, although the golf course at 59th Avenue and Indian School Road was integrated from its inception.
The growing suburb was annexed into the city of Phoenix in 1960. Residents overwhelmingly supported annexation. Long went on to serve as a city councilman and a philanthropist. To the end of his life, in 2008, he was dedicated to Maryvale, even as it changed. He was instrumental, for example, in establishing Maryvale Stadium, the most charming of the metropolitan area's Spring Training facilities. Yet he was also dedicated to Phoenix. So Maryvale never had the legally constituted home owners association (HOA), with extra-municipal powers and deeply separated from its host city, that became the norm in the 1990s and beyond. Long's company endures and continues to support many causes in its first big project.
White flight, Hispanic migrations, "Scaryvale" and its gangs, and Phoenix's vast linear slums underserved by city services and Arizona's scandalously underfunded schools — all that was in the future (some of which I examined in a previous column). From the 1950s and for decades after, Maryvale personified the postwar, middle-class "American Dream."
Maryvale begins — gallery (click on a photo for a larger image):
Newlyweds: John and Mary Long in the late 1940s (Brad Hall Collection, photographer unknown).
John and Mary Long in the Maryvale showroom, where buyers could pick housing styles and customize their interiors. (John F. Long Properties)
Prospective buyers tour model homes in the 1950s. (John F. Long Properties).
Maryvale Community Hospital, which became Maryvale Samaritan Hospital, in the 1960s (Brad Hall Collection, photographer unknown).
A Maryvale "Hospitality" model home at 60th Avenue and Clarendon (Brad Hall Collection, photographer unknown).
In 1961, Maryvale was recognized by General Electric for its all-electric homes. Here's John F. Long with GE spokesman Ronald Reagan (Brad Hall Collection, photographer unknown).
A Maryvale billboard in the late 1950s. Few Phoenix had swimming pools when Long made them a staple.
Long at a construction site. Although a posed photo, Long was involved in all aspects of Maryvale. (Brad Hall Collection, photographer unknown).
This overhead view of Maryvale Terrace shopping center, 51st Avenue and Indian School Road, also shows the expanse of newly-finished houses (Photographer unknown).
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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.
Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.
Thanks, Jon. I enjoy your columns about the history of Phoenix, and this one about Maryvale inspired me to share a bit of my own Maryvale story:
In 1983, when I was six years old, my family moved from the hamlet of Eagar in Arizona’s White Mountains to a John F. Long home on 57th Drive in Maryvale. After living in a cold and windy place, it was exciting to live in a house with eight palm trees and a swimming pool in the yard.
My mom worked for a few years at Gaston Jewelers in the Maryvale Terrace shopping center. I remember visiting her there, and enjoying the plaza’s little secret garden, which had a waterfall and fish pond, park benches and nice landscaping. Old-timers said that the garden used to be open to the public, but by the time we moved to Maryvale, it was hidden behind gates, a place for shopping center employees to take their lunch breaks.
I loved riding my bike around Maryvale when I was a little kid, and I made lots of friends at school. Many of their parents were well-educated professionals. I was friends with the sons of John F. Long’s longtime director of real estate. I remember many, many teachers living in the neighborhood. Starting just a few years after we arrived, most of these professionals (generally Anglo, although I remember several Hispanic teachers and their families living in the neighborhood, too) moved out in quick succession. Many moved to newer developments in Peoria or Arrowhead Ranch to the north or the Villa de Paz/Garden Lakes area to the west.
The families that moved in to replace those who departed were often poorer and almost never Anglo. Many were single-mother households. The appearance of the homes and landscapes declined rapidly. Graffiti was everywhere. By the late 80s, the schools were pretty bad. Racial and ethnic tensions were a constant presence on the campuses, as were street gangs.
Still, my dad, a blue-collar union worker, loved Maryvale. It was his kind of place. Tough and gritty, but with many great people who had good stories to tell. Dad served for a while on the Maryvale Planning Committee. I remember attending the groundbreaking of the Maryvale Amphitheater (quickly renamed Desert Sky Pavilion; who knows what it is called now?). Actor Don Johnson arrived in a helicopter to the middle of a big dirt field, and turned over one of the first shovelfuls of dirt. My dad thought that project would help revitalize the area.
When I was in eighth grade, a house in our neighborhood was firebombed early in the morning, just before the resident was to testify as a victim in a trial at Superior Court. That Christmas Eve, our car was stolen from the carport. Over the next year, there was a drive-by shooting at the local Jack-in-the-Box restaurant, the on-the-job murder of the manager of a local movie theater, and a drive-by shooting at the busy new Olive Garden restaurant outside Westridge (now Desert Sky) Mall. The final straw for my family was the drive-by shooting on our own street. It was a school night, and I was jerked awake by pow pow pow pow pow pow! I peeked through my bedroom’s mini-blinds, and saw the shooter’s car speed by. It turned out that my friend Domingo’s house was the place that had been shot up (luckily, nobody was hurt).
At the end of ninth grade, my family moved just outside the Phoenix city limits to the then-popular Villa de Paz golf course community. We lived about a mile from John and Mary Long’s gated estate, with its pastoral duck pond. I transferred from Maryvale High School to Westview High School, which had far less racial conflict and gang activity, and just basically was a better environment for learning. I’m not sure how Westview has held up in the long run.
When I was a senior in high school (1995), there was a vote regarding whether Villa de Paz should be annexed into Phoenix. My parents and the majority of other residents, many of whom had moved there from Maryvale too, voted in favor. The western boundary of the map of “Maryvale Village” was quickly extended to encompass a golf course surrounded by curvilinear streets. And it was at about that time that people of financial means began to move out of Villa de Paz; to Goodyear and Litchfield Park to the West, to Arrowhead Ranch and Surprise to the north…
Personally, I’m partial to the Tempe Spring Training Stadiums. Maryvale definitely FEELS historic though.
I lived in multiple homes in Maryvale for two decades. John F. Long and his foundation truly supported the community throughout that time.
He wasn’t just a builder of homes, but connected with the city and school district. His Maryvale Mall routinely displayed schoolwork and artwork from local schools. One could always count on donations from his foundation for all types of charities, especially youth activities.
How different from now. Can you name any homebuilders now who can compare to the level of community support over time? Or do they build for profit, then move on? Perhaps our current expectations of corporations exclude community concerns?
I lived in Maryvale during the 80s and early 90s when it was considered a good place to raise kids. They could walk and bike to parks and schools. It was considered a good place for affordable starter homes, in a safe, multicultural, family neighborhood.
All places change over time. But during those decades the name Maryvale had positive connotations.
I know Maryvale well. The original Maryvale was where Jon mentioned that JF Long built his first house.
My father was then Superindent of the Alhambra School District. Alhambra could not build schools fast enough to keep up. Andalucia – at 47th Ave and Campbell did not have locks on the doors the first three weeks of school
I walked guard duty with my trusty Winchester for that time.
John Long was actually a former student of my father’s.
Dad always accused him of trying to get even for something that happened during that time.
The truth is Long was more than cooperative – even donated the land for the aforementioned school.
The school that was built at 35th Ave and Missouri was originally named Maryvale
Sadly, Maryvale has, like many other areas, has suffered from “White Flight”and detoriated greatly.
Such is life in the Megalopolis of the Salt River Valley.
Spent many an hour looking at homes we couldn’t afford with my ex-wife as she liked to look at the decorating.Usually went to the Hallcraft home models as it was closest to us.Wasn’t it on Camelback and around 24st?
I always enjoy Jon’s re-posting of Phoenix 101 articles as they remind me of my past and also I know this re-posting gives Jon time to work on his next mystery book and take care of his “day job”.
Maryvale Begins
“Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders”. From a toon in the New Yorker magazine (2012).
I recall when the first truss joist left the manufacturing yard in South Phoenix to begin the widespread onslaught destruction of the great Sonoran Desert. My deceased friend Bob Cosgrove an ASU Architecture student was part of the making of the prefabrication effort to bring cheap housing to the desert. He went on to D.C. and became the guy in charge of “if one had a problem with regard to V.A. housing”.
With all due respect to folks like John F Long and other such “stewards” of the Valley of the Sun, their intentions may be have been honorable but their efforts were a mistake that continues today. But developers today are not honorable and have no civic concerns. As you read this they continue the sprawl by slashing the Deserts from the west coast to the east state boundaries of Arizona throwing down dwellings for more soil banker retirees and Canadian outlier’s.
But does it really Matter? Should I just accept that “Manunkind” is going to continue his climb from the current 7 billion towards 30 billion?
Will “rough men that ride through the night” become the guys carrying shotguns enforcing the rules on mining off planet where capitalist companies feed workers drugs to increase production to send resource’s back to the planet “earth”? I despair that technology will not save the species and that before we are gone we will have destroyed most other species with the exception of the cockroaches and the coyotee.
As some would say even after we are gone the planet will still be here doing whatever planets do. But given current world conflict and the downhill slide into dictatorship we have sped up the clock of eventual destruction of its inhabitants.
Well as the quail and other desert denizens drink from my watering hole, it’s time for my workout and some reading (yesterday I took time out from “fact” reading to read the novel, “The Far Empty” set in the area of the Big Bend in Texas).
And today is the day I avoid having a five dollar Mocha. I need a 12 step program to withdraw from Starbucks.
the Maryvales of the future? Off planet communities?
Influences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outland_(film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner
things to look forward too.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/alien-covenant-is-actually-a-blade-runner-sequel-disguise-1005606
https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog/blade-runner-2049-thinkers-film-2017
Maryvale back in the “good ole days”.
“When cars were fast and loud and beautiful and we raced them in the night.”
George Pelecanos in The Triple Black Cuda in the book, The Highway Kind.
A number of students who attended Andalucia School from its opening day in 1955 through 8th grade graduation in 1963 still get together for lunch and conversation regularly. One of our classmates even became the school principal!
We have wonderful memories including double-sessions until enough classrooms were erected and bringing sack lunches until the cafeteria was built. We played four-square on on the concrete during irrigation days, 7-up in the classroom when it rained, and enjoyed Friday night dances when we became 7th and 8th graders. Teachers volunteered to host Saturday morning movies in the summer time, Frances the Talking Mule was a popular star, and we spent countless hours at nearby Maryvale park and swimming pool.
Our mother’s formed the Maryvale Women’s Club and organized community programs for young ladies that included grooming tips, dating etiquette, and a subject considered innovative and controversial at the time, drug abuse education. The club also sponsored the planting of plum trees along Maryvale Parkway and other beautification projects and services.
We all feel lucky to have grown up in the close knit family oriented community of early Maryvale.
I grew up in this area. It’s sad how the are has declined. I keep thinking…certain areas should be designated an Arts district. Might take years to catch on..look at the success of the Roosevelt district downtown. The John F. Long homes are so spacious..crafters …musicians…painters…could breathe fresh air into the area. Tax breaks and incentives to move into the area would help as well. Giving back to the community…sharing music..art …skills…could be transformational for a community that has lost a sense of belonging together. I love clay, printmaking ,painting. I honed my skills while living in Maryvale. I’ll bet there are others who feel the same as I do.
I grew up on Maryvale until my parents decided that the water was too scary to stay. ( not whiteflight at all ) most people started moving when the rumors started that the water was not good and going to get much worse. My great grandmother also lived two streets over. I went to Andelucia elementary and moved after second grade to the foothills off carefree highway. We built our own home long before any subdivisions popped up there. I have fond memories of walking to school with my sister to Andelucia and playing at the park , and pool. Also my sister was born at Maryvale hospital.
I Love and Adore Maryvale…. I’m a native and was born at the original Maryvale Hospital in 1963… It was truly a Breathtaking area to live in back then… My dad bought my mom a brand new Golden Medallion Home off of 51st Avenue and Thomas in 1962… There was nothing around us but corn fields to the south, a Circle K & Laundromat on the Northeast corner… It was Heaven on Earth…. It truly breaks my heart to see how it turned out…. My sister Still lives in our family home my parents built… it looks brand new, just like it did the day we moved in almost 60 years ago…. But the neighborhood has changed and Not for the better… It’s So Depressing….. but she loves her house…. I just remember when every single home looked like hers does now and it just So Sad….
Bring back the original Maryvale demographics and the place will sparkle like it once did.
No one wants to hear it, although less so now, but it’s true.
My mother moved to Phoenix from Western Pennsylvania in 1959 shortly after I was born. We lived in downtown Phoenix in the early days when Phoenix was just a small community. Maryvale back then was farmland. Cotton fields, Dairy farms, etc. In 1963 we rented a home west of 35th Avenue and Roosevelt. It was a small two bedroom house. Enough for us. Our landlord had just bought a brand new John F. Long home in Maryvale. The home they bought had two bathrooms, and five bedrooms on a huge lot! Dot and Ed had five kids that I grew up with. We loved to go over and visit them in Maryvale. The neighborhood was new. The home owners and community and the neighbors were good people. It was mostly white but not all. The neighbors across the street were Hispanic. They were very nice. Everyone got along. The neighborhood was safe. As kids we could ride our bikes, walk anywhere including to the school to play. No one worried about us. We could be gone all day playing outside and our parents never worried about us. We could go to the community pool and swim all day long if we wanted. We just had to be home when it got dark. Halloween was always fun. Everyone in the neighborhood participated in Halloween. They had haunted houses everywhere. We bobbed for apples, went trick or treating and came home with loads of good candy. My memories of Maryvale in the early to mid 1960s are some of my best childhood memories. My mom was a single mother. We couldn’t qualify for a John F. Long home. My mom wanted one so badly but we were too poor. Eventually we had to move from the two bedroom rented house into the Coffelt Projects at 19th Avenue and Buckeye because mom got sick with cancer and couldn’t work for a long time. Coffelt wasn’t so bad in the mid 1960s but by the time I reached age 14 and started high school at Carl Hayden, the projects became a very violent, gang infested, drug infested nightmare. Eventually, Maryvale became the same way as did many neighborhoods in west Phoenix. I bought a home on 35th Avenue and Camelback in the late 1980s. It was nice when I moved in. Mostly white retired middle class people. By the mid 1990s it too became a violent, drug infested, gang infested nightmare. The gangs ran us all out by intimidation and shooting bullets through our windows. They wanted our houses. They got them too. Then the neighborhood turned into a run down, gang infested, drug infested nightmare. In Maryvale Dot and Ed had sold out too because the neighborhood started to deteriorate. They moved to Strawberry as they had land there and built a home and moved their family away from Phoenix. The last time I visited Maryvale in the mid 1990s, it was not safe to even drive through anymore. I drove through there to look at Dot and Ed’s old house as I had such fond memories from childhood. It was very sad to see how badly it had deteriorated. Just driving through the neighborhood was very scary! So scary, I didn’t even bother to look for Dot and Ed’s old house. I got the heck out there quick! John F. Long had a great plan. He developed nice big homes for big families at an affordable price. He had the right idea. It’s a shame.