Taliesin West is Architect Frank Lloyd Wright's winter residence. It is located in Scottsdale AZ, a National Historic Landmark.

It is open to the public and there are daily tours of the place where the world-renowned architect lived, taught and worked until his 92-nd year.

The talented docents make the tour experience wonderfully engaging, relevant and inspiring. They all tell, in their own entertaining way, the story of the architect, whose health made him move from Wisconsin to Arizona, how he chose the land for his future residence, how he selected materials and designed this desert masterpiece, how the apprentices learned from him, how he and his wife created the Cabaret Theater and Music Pavilion and brought art, theatre and ballet to the campus.

On display in front of the Cabaret Theater and throughout the Garden are the sculptures of Heloise Crista, one of Frank Lloyd Wright's living students.

Beautiful images of motion and fluidity, captured in bronze.

In the Kiva Room we learn how recessed lighting was born, and how residents lived in the times before air conditioning.

Visiting Taliesin West is always inspiring and a new discovery for me.

 Metal Art in the Front Yard 

Single Family Home in Central Tempe, AZ 85282
 

Front Yard - Christmas Card to the Neighborhood

( Christmas Lights from Two Neighborhoods in Tempe AZ 85282 )

It is a treat to stroll in this highly walkable neighborhood in Tempe AZ any time of the year, especially around Christmas.

The front yard of this home in Tempe AZ has been gradually converted from a green lawn to the fruit-bearing orchard it is now. The casual beauty of the agriscaped front yard of the home in the picture provides a lot of joy and pride to its owners during the whole year. In December, the pine tree is decorated with holiday lights. In February, citrus trees are quite a sensory experience - fragrant and stunningly beautiful with the opulence of the lemon tree, with the aromas of the orange and tangelo trees. I was surprised when I counted the number of shrubs and trees – total of fifteen: two eucalyptuses (huge), one pine tree, one cedar, two varieties of apricots, two apple trees, one lemon, one tangelo, one orange, several purple bougainvillea shrubs.

The proud owners of this home enjoy fresh fruit from their own garden almost in any season – by the time the citruses are gone, the apricots and peaches will be coming into season, and after them are the apples (now in beautiful pink blossoms in the picture). Besides fruit, the owners enjoy a few greens for their salad. There’s mint, parsley, arugula, and a few rosemary plants. Those of us who prepare home meals know – nice to have these in a few dishes, but we can never use up the whole bunch that we bought from the store.

The front yard fits perfectly well with the neighbor’s desert landscaping and with the green lawn across the street. It adds its own signature, character and much desired shade in a street of well-maintained homes. It consumes a lot less water than a green grass lawn, requires little time to maintain it, and is practically self-sufficient, yet aesthetically competing very successfully in color, fragrance and shape with purely decorative, designer-landscaped yards.

Agriscaped yards add to the value of properties and create a welcoming atmosphere to the new buyers when they are viewing homes.