Raising Arizona

Scottsdale and Tucson lead the way for the state’s high-end resort developments.

text by: Elizabeth Exline

August 1, 2007

Yet, for all its appreciation, Scottsdale and Paradise Valley remain affordable
—and therefore desirable—when compared to other luxury markets. "The luxury, single-family-home market is doing extremely well," says Wilken. "And it’s due to a couple of factors: We’re building some magnificent homes, and we are really getting the out-of-state, out-of-country buyer who is used to paying more for a piece of comparable property." Prices for the 56 homes now on the market in Paradise Valley start at $5 million, which is enough to get a 6,000-square-foot home on one acre within a private gated community. Currently, the most expensive home on the market is a 15,000-square-foot estate on five acres with a price tag of $20 million.

Developer Peter Magee of Magee Custom Homes, who has been building dramatic, contemporary houses in Desert Mountain since 2000, contends that the market is strong enough to support current—and future—prices. After all, California buyers do not blink an eye when paying sums that make Scottsdale residents blush. "It’s hard to imagine that prices will continue to increase, but historically they have," Magee says. "Will it go at the rate it has over the past five years? Probably not. But given construction and land costs, the pricing that people have on homes out here is not unrealistic."

Top and Bottom: Architect David Hovey, whose firm Optima has offices in both Scottsdale and Chicago, designed this eco-conscious home at Desert Mountain. The glass and steel house contains 13,000 watts of solar cells sandwiched between two layers of glass. Photography by Bill Timmerman/ Courtesy Optima, Inc. (Click images to enlarge)

Magee raises an important point: Land in Scottsdale is growing scarce, and buyers should expect to pay accordingly. (In Paradise Valley, Wilken notes, an average lot commands around $1.35 million.) Such dwindling opportunity is exactly what developers behind Scottsdale’s two latest communities, Sereno Canyon and Privada, are capitalizing on. Sereno Canyon, located on the north base of the McDowell Mountains, is a custom-home community of 122 estate-size lots that range from one-and-a-half to just under five acres. The community’s iconic rolling hills, 360-degree views and rock outcroppings and formations are both striking and increasingly hard to come by in new developments. Accordingly, prospective homeowners can expect to pay between the mid-$700,000s and $2 million for a homesite. Of its 39 lots, 35 are currently reserved, and the next phase is scheduled for release this winter.

Sereno Canyon’s homesites start in the mid-$700,000s. (Click image to enlarge)

Privada, adjacent to the Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North, offers 11 homesites for custom homes and 40 semicustom spec homes. Homesites range from $800,000 to around $1.4 million; predesigned residences are priced from $1.5 million to $2 million. And though Privada is next door to the Four Seasons, it has abstained from cobbling together a concierge package in conjunction with the resort. Instead, residents can choose if or how they would like to use the resort and then make arrangements on their own for a spa treatment or dinner rather than having 24-hour access to all the hotel’s amenities.

Prices at Scottsdale’s Privada start at $800,000 for a homesite and $1.5 million for a spec home. Rendering by Tim Reader. (Click image to enlarge)

For people who do want a full hotel-style package, there are still fractional ownership opportunities with Four Seasons Residence Club Scottsdale at Troon North. Prices for the remaining 10 percent of shares range from $16,000 for one week during the "Silver" season of mid-July to mid-September, to $100,000 for two "Platinum" weeks of prime Scottsdale time—the holiday period through late May.

Located north of the Four Seasons development, Whisper Rock Estates is something of an anomaly in the golf-crazy world of Scottsdale communities: It is a completely separate entity from Whisper Rock Golf Club, which is nearby and requires a sponsor for every golfer who wants to be invited to join. Golf legend Gregg Tryhus developed the club, and it is home to Phil Mickelson’s first golf course design. The 850-acre, 200-homesite community has 47 lots on the market priced from $600,000 to $1.9 million.

Since every Scottsdale community is sitting on a disappearing commodity, developers are not too concerned when a property stays on the market longer than expected. Such has been the case at Mirabel, a Discovery Land Company development that sits on 713 acres just south of Desert Mountain and includes a Tom Fazio–designed course as part of its private, member-owned Mirabel Golf Club. Only three of Mirabel’s original 315 developer lots remain, and lot prices there have doubled or, in some cases, tripled since sales began in 2001. Currently, there are about 25 lots on the resale market priced between $500,000 and $1 million.



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