Photo courtesy of Troon North Golf Club
With art museums, golf courses and luxury architecture, Scottsdale, Arizona is more than just a desert town.
Known as The West’s Most Western Town, Scottsdale, Arizona, is certainly more than just a desert town as it is annually rated among the nation’s most desirable communities to live in, visit and conduct business. Three focuses in particular are art, golf and architecture, each a key draw for the luxury sector and ones that have shaped the culture of the city.
Among Scottsdale’s 80 art galleries are museums that not only showcase fantastic creations from artists, but also provide an insight to the city’s past. One in particular is Western Spirit: Scottsdale’s Museum of the West, located in Old Town, which offers high-quality exhibitions reflecting the arts and dynamic cultural exchanges in the city’s history. Dr. Tricia Loscher, assistant director of collections, exhibitions and research at Western Spirit, says that the Scottsdale art scene started at the Arizona Craftsmen Center in the 1940s, where skilled artisans could work and collaborate together, and customers could watch art being created in front of their eyes. These artists in turn helped to elevate Scottsdale’s cultural standing by showing and selling their unique creations.
Photo courtesy of © Loren Anderson 2018
Museum of the West
Today, artists are continually drawn to Scottsdale, a place that is recognized worldwide as a destination for art collectors and enthusiasts. The diversity of the city’s artistic community, says Loscher, leaves visitors remarking on how much there is to see, and that it cannot all be viewed in one trip. “You’ll want to come back again and again because you can’t possibly do justice to what Scottsdale has to offer.”
Photo courtesy of © Jill Richards Photography
Taliesin West
The distinctive landscape of Arizona, punctuated by giant granite boulders strewn across the rugged Sonoran Desert, is the perfect playground for those who live and breathe the golf lifestyle. There are several key points as to why Scottsdale is such a popular golf destination, according to Mike Friend, director of sales at Troon North Golf Club, from wonderful weather to the beautiful desert itself. “The unique desert layouts are so different from typical tree-lined golf [courses],” he notes, adding that players love how the green grass contrasts from the desert browns.
This culture began in the 1990s as many courses over the last 30 years were built around luxury residential developments and communities, which also stimulated the growth of resorts and travel interest overall. “The growth of this type of traveler created a need for more golf,” Friend says. The travel fever has not stopped since, and from the variety of activities and sights, Scottsdale is bound to experience growth and diversity for years to come.
Also nestled in the desert, along the foothills of the McDowell Mountains, is an architectural mecca — Taliesin West, known to historians as Frank Lloyd Wright’s desert laboratory in Arizona. Taliesin West was Wright’s beloved winter home and the headquarters of the Taliesin Fellowship, an architectural marvel that has since become a National Historic Landmark, as well as the home of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the School of Architecture at Taliesin.
“[Wright] found the site in 1937 and with his apprentices began experimenting with new materials and building techniques to create a desert camp that embodied his principles of organic architecture,” according to Foundation president and CEO Stuart Graff. The Foundation works to preserve the site and Wright’s legacy through programs that bring more than 110,000 visitors to Scottsdale. Here Wright’s experimental camp is open to the world as a living expression of his ideal vision for how he wanted humanity to live in harmony with the world around us.
Photo courtesy of © 2016 Andrew Pielage
Taliesin West
This editorial originally appeared in Unique Homes Winter 2020.
The perfect home finds a balance between style and substance.
Style or substance? The perfect home finds a balance between both of these concepts, and this newly built mountain residence is no exception. 1548 Explorer Peak Drive, located inside the Red Ledges residential development in Heber City, Utah, was carefully sited on a dynamic hillside to optimize unobstructed views of Mt. Timpanogos. Its architectural design pairs with hand-selected materials and luxury finishes, perfect for retreat seekers and outdoor enthusiasts alike.
Every detail of this home creates a seamless transition from indoors to out. Abundant natural light is cast through the home’s soaring windows, while the vast outdoor living areas are situated to connect the home to nature’s beauty. The expansive indoor/outdoor living spaces, featuring a custom spa, fire pit, fireplace, and more, make this home perfect for both entertaining and relaxing, with stunning mountain views as the ideal backdrop. Interior features that capture attention as much as the surrounding beauty include French oak flooring, a gourmet kitchen with a waterfall quartz island, and a large main-floor master suite.
With its coveted location in the Heber Valley in the heart of Utah’s Wasatch Back mountain recreation mecca, Red Ledges offers an active outdoor lifestyle, according to Mitchel Burns, Red Ledges chief operating officer. “Members come together and immerse themselves in some of the most beautiful — and accessible — natural habitats in the world.” Red Ledges offers such outdoor attractions as world championship mountain biking, world-class fly fishing, boating, hiking trails and more.
Management at Red Ledges agrees that those who find a place at Red Ledges not only share in the coveted mountain lifestyle, they also form close kinships with their neighbors. “Lifelong friendships develop as members laugh and play together and create the real personal connection for which Red Ledges is known,” says John “JJ” Johnson, Red Ledges Club general manager. For $3.595 million, one can find peace of mind at this contemporary mountain haven with enough style and substance for all.
This super high-end recording facility is perched atop a scenic bluff overlooking the pristine Minas Gerais mountain range.
By Brielle Bryan
Global architectural acoustic consulting firm Walters-Storyk Design Group announced the opening of Brazil’s first world-class, destination recording facility, Sonastério Studios. A 30-minute drive from Belo Horizonte, the luxurious home is a collaboration between famed Brazilian architect João Diniz and WSDG, and was created for the famous musician and engineer Bruno Barros.
The modernistic glass and concrete 8,000 square foot structure is meticulously well appointed, and features a 1,500-square-foot world-class recording studio with 20-foot-high ceilings. This super high-end recording facility is also perched atop a scenic bluff overlooking the pristine Minas Gerais mountain range.
“Sonastério Studios is a work of art in itself,” Barros said. “More than just a recording studio, Sonastério is a house of creation designed to enhance the natural expressiveness of each artist.”
WSDG was engaged during the earliest phases of the project to ensure a seamless integration of the recording studio component — a key requirement of Barros from the beginning. WSDG has designed nearly 4,000 media production facilities worldwide. Its projects range from Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studio and Jazz At Lincoln Center in New York to broadcast facilities for The Food Network, CBS and WNET. WSDG has additionally designed private studios for Green Day, Jay-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys and Academy Award-nominated film composer Carter Burwell.
In addition to this showcase home’s recording studio, which features an SSL 924 recording console, it has three guest bedrooms, 5-star amenities, abundant natural lighting and drop-dead gorgeous views from both indoor and outdoor spaces.
Photos courtesy of WSDG
Los Angeles-based real estate development firm, Irongate, announces the debut of Amanvari, a resort that will serve as a peaceful escape and private oasis, nestled between the mountains and sea on the Eastern Cape of the Baja Peninsula in northwestern Mexico.
Irongate, a Los Angeles-based real estate development firm, announced the debut of Amanvari, a peaceful escape and private oasis nestled between the majestic Sierra de la Laguna mountain range and Sea of Cortes on the Eastern Cape of the Baja Peninsula in northwestern Mexico. Aman Resorts International is scheduled to open Amanvari, its new hotel and private residences, in 2020.
Aman is a luxury hotel group with 33 destinations in 21 countries. Its name is derived from the Sanskrit-derived words for “peace” and “water.” Set within Costa Palmas, a private beachfront resort community with three kilometers of swimmable beach, Amanvari is easily accessible from almost every American hub.
“It is an incredible honor and a dream come true for me to have an Aman resort at Costa Palmas,” said Jason Grosfeld, chairman and CEO of Irongate. “It is a testament to the beauty of the East Cape that Aman has selected Costa Palmas to be their first destination in Mexico.”
Irongate, in collaboration with Aman, has commissioned architects Heah & Co. who have approached the design of Amanvari with the overriding objective of allowing the surreal landscape to take center stage. The resort design contemplates 20 bi-level hotel pavilions, each offering a generosity of space both inside and out. The pavilions will be spread across the resort’s bucolic landscape and boast floor to ceiling windows that open onto an outdoor terrace and wraparound sundeck.
The main pavilion at Amanvari will form the heart of the resort. This pavilion will be a destination where guests and residents can enjoy restaurants, a library and lounge, as well as a 30-meter infinity pool incorporating four hot tubs. The Aman Spa pavilion is planned to be steps from the main pavilion along a treed pathway.
For those looking for a more permanent Aman lifestyle, an initial release of only 24 whole-ownership Aman Residences will be offered for sale. Aman Residences will range from four to seven bedrooms spanning from 1,207 to 1,858 square meters of covered indoor-outdoor living.
In addition to Amanvari, the Costa Palmas master plan includes a Robert Trent Jones II golf course, 18-acres of organic farms, the private members-only Costa Palmas Beach and Yacht Club to which residence owners will be invited to join and Four Seasons Resort Los Cabos at Costa Palmas.
A 45-minute drive from Los Cabos International Airport ventures away from the popular destination of Los Cabos and takes guests to the East Cape, where there are few tourists. Guests can dive with migrant whales, go on sailing and fishing expeditions, visit freshwater ponds with a resident biologist and visit local ranches for horseback riding at Amanvari.
Tucked away in a far corner of the thousand-acre development where the sea, the wild desert and farmland meet, Amanvari is part of Costa Palmas, yet geographically and elementally removed from it. Wild and natural, Amanvari envelopes guests and residents in its own private sanctuary.
Photos courtesy of Aman