Arizona Stories: Wrigley Mansion

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An eclectic mix of style and history – the Wrigley Mansion on tonight’s Arizona Story.

>> Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon," a global epidemic of diabetes is forcing a hard look at lifestyles. We'll visit an Arizona community that has battled that disease. The Valley is undergoing a housing boom but are more buyers unable to pay the high prices? And an eclectic mix of style and history, the Wrigley Mansion on tonight's Arizona Story.

Underwriter:
Horizon is made possible by the friends of Channel 8.

>> Michael Grant:
Good evening. I'm Michael Grant. Welcome to "Horizon." The journal of pediatrics reports that type II diabetes is on the rise in the world, particularly afflicting children. That's a startling change from past studies that indicated the disease was relatively rare in the young. But the rise in obesity and a sedentary lifestyle are contributing to the problem. Arizona's Native American communities have been battling that problem for years. Larry Lemmons takes us to the San Carlos Apache reservation where an aggressive diabetes education program is in place to help stem the epidemic.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Lois Sprengeler is the quality manager at San Carlos hospital. She is talking to the patient advocate who takes complaints and provides Apache interpretation for patients. The hospital is located on the San Carlos Apache reservation. It's run by the Indian health service, an agency within the department of health and human services. Sprengeler has worked at the hospital about 15 years. Five years ago she suspected she had diabetes.

>> Lois Sprengeler:
I just kind of noticed something wasn't right with me anymore. I didn't feel the way I used to feel. I told the physician I felt as though my skin had become very, very itchy and I've never had that before. So I said, I want the test done to see if I am now diabetic. My mother was a diabetic, and she had a lot of complications due to her diabetes and ended up on dialysis. So being that I'm in the healthcare field, I knew that I probably would eventually become diabetic. So every year I would get tested for to that see whether I had become a diabetic. So I was already mentally prepared for that. This is Lois, may I help you?

>> Larry Lemmons:
Sprengeler's suspicion was confirmed. She was diagnosed with diabetes.

>> Lois Sprengeler:
At that time I was really motivated. I saw the dietitian, learned about carbohydrate counting, learned about how to watch what you're eating, saw the diabetic educator Linda Clark.

>> Linda Clark:
Again, it's important to check your blood sugar because dizziness can also be that your blood pressure is out of control or it can be something else.

>> Woman:
Okay.

>> Linda Clark:
Does that help you out?

>> Woman:
Yeah, that kind of helps me. I would like to make an appointment with you --

>> Linda Clark:
Okay.

>> Woman:
To learn more about it.

>> Linda Clark:
I can certainly do that.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Linda Clark is the diabetes educator at San Carlos. She has been at the hospital 23 years. Diabetes has reached epidemic proportions in Native Americans. Clark has seen the disease increasingly affect the young.

>> Linda Clark:
I've seen the struggles that patients go through dealing with a chronic illness. Many of our clients are younger and younger. It used to be what I would call an old person's disease. People would get it in their 50s. Now many of my clients are in their 20s and 30s. So how do you deal with a chronic condition that's going to be there my entire life? There's a lot of denial. They've seen their grandparents or their aunts, great aunts or uncles die of horrific complications and I think for me the hardest think is how can I present the information in a way that people don't feel that it's a death sentence.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Two factors have contribute to the high incidence of diabetes in Native Americans.

>> John Molina:
Genetically Native Americans are more prone to develop diabetes in their adult life. Culturally the diabetes that we see in Native American people is also a result of lifestyle. The change in lifestyle from a very sort of a hunter, gathering, sort of a people to one that more sedentary and that's what happened to our world now. But because of the decrease in activity and the genetic pre-disposition, you add those two together, it makes for diabetes to be found more in the Native American people.

>> Nurse:
So on the newly diagnosed patients, we're trying to get them into the I.M. clinic.

>> Larry Lemmons:
At San Carlos, Dr. Binoy Chandra says efforts to promote prevention have been successful.

>> Binoy Chandra:
Because of our diabetic program defenses, some of the complications of diabetes has definitely decreased here and also certain myths about diabetes that was prevailing before has also disappeared, though we still face some challenges in that regard.

>> Larry Lemmons:
One of the lingering myths about diabetes is that nothing can be done to prevent it, treat it or survive with it. Also the tendency toward acceptance sometimes interferes with prevention.

>> John Molina:
Native American people have always lived in our world accepting the world as it is. They sort of give themselves to the elements, and for whatever might become them, they've learned to integrate themselves into the world and come to respect this world in a very serene and spiritual way. In a sense, it's almost like giving themselves to whatever destiny might befall them. That's what becomes very acceptable. I think this is what the sort of early colonies found here in the Americas, was a group of individuals of tribes who just sort of roamed the earth, lived off the earth, and accepted whatever came to them. This is sort of an attitude, I think, that's not bad in itself but it's just a way different way of looking at the world. It's a way of saying to the world, if I'm healthy, I will accept my healthful state, do as much as I can, but if I get sick, that's my time in life. There's not sort of the apprehension, there's not a sort of fear of death itself. It's something that's very much acceptable. There's that idea of spirituality, we're on this earth for whatever reason, for whatever purpose, then we move on. That sort of activity makes it difficult to try to intrude into that attitude one of health prevention, you know, doing things so you could live longer. They might ask why do I want to live longer? Whatever time I have on this earth I'm going to do. I found this to be very interesting in 1982 when I was a social worker in Guadalupe working among the Yaqui people when I was just devastated at the amount of people that had diabetes but were not taking care of themselves. They would see a healer or do their natural herbal treatment but when asked why they didn't go to a doctor or do anything more aggressive, the answer was, well, because this is supposed to happen to me.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Sprengeler agrees that it's too easy to accept as inevitable things that can be prevented.

>> Lois Sprengeler:
You have to have the mind set, a positive mind set, that I can live with diabetes or, you know, I'm not going to get to dialysis or have all the complications like having an amputation of my foot done, those types things. You can do a lot to prevent those. It really has to be up to you. But if you have that mind set, oh, well, my parents had diabetes, I'm going to have diabetes, I don't want my grandchildren to have diabetes.

>> Larry Lemmons:
It's partly due to the program's created by the Indian health service that patients are beginning to take a greater responsibility for their health.

>> Don Davis:
If you eat properly, not too many high-fat foods, and you follow a healthy diet, low in fat, and you watch your weight, and you do that by exercising, exercise has to be a part of that, if you practice that on a regular basis, more than likely you're going to avoid our top three diseases. It's not an absolute guarantee, but the likelihood of you being healthy is good, and so getting people to understand that and to do that is a real challenge for us.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Like many on the reservation, Lois Sprengeler believes the key to solving many of the health problems facing Native Americans is to focus on the children.

>> Lois Sprengeler:
I believe if that we're going to make an impact with diabetic care right now, or changing the course, we have to start with our children now. We've got to, and native people have a lot of opportunity, but it has to come from within you. We have the mechanisms. One of our councilmen said that the Apache people have a lot of capability, ability to problem solve, we have a lot of talent here. It's just that people aren't aware that they have it. I believe that somehow we've got to get to that point where people see that they have that type of talent and the ability to problem solve and the ability to make changes in their lives.

>> Michael Grant:
If you've been trying to buy a house lately, you know how difficult that process can be. Sometimes homes are on the market for just hours before they are snatched up at even more than the asking price. Recently Feliciano Vera talked to local experts about our hot housing market, but first Mike Sauceda tells us how the market is affecting one builder in particular.

>> Mike Sauceda:
Trisha Verela and her friends check out her future home. It's under construction at Centara, a Standard Pacific subdivision in Goodyear.

>> Trisha Verela:
I am very excited seeing my house come up. It's nice to see that -- they've started the foundation and now the walls are coming up.

>> Mike Sauceda:
Verela and her husband sold their home in Southern California for $400,000 plus and bought this home for $189,000. Her husband will commute from Goodyear to Mesa, but it's a shorter commute than the one he had in California.

>> Trisha Verela:
It's not so bad. It's about a 45-minute drive right now, and then when we lived in California, he was driving into San Diego. So that was about a two-hour commute to and from.

>> Mike Sauceda:
Verela is just one of over 38,000 people who bought a new house in the Valley last year. The Arizona Real Estate Center at Arizona State University East says over 88,000 housing permits were issued in Arizona last year. That demand has affected prices. Prices for a new home jumped 19% in 2004 with the median price of a new home at over $211,000 in Maricopa Country at the end of last year. The median price of a resale home jumped to $203,000 in March, rising almost 7% that month. Interest rates have remained stable so far staying at 5.5% at the end of last year. For Standard Pacific, the builder of Centara and 15 other subdivisions, the hot housing market means lots of sales.

>> Pat Maroney:
Last year we did about 1600 homes delivered. This year we'll deliver close to 1900 homes.

>> Mike Sauceda:
The company is based in Irvine, California, and sells an average of 10,000 homes a year in 27 markets. The strong housing market does have its challenges for homebuilders.

>> Pat Maroney:
It's a challenging market now, a lot of trade stress. Our subcontractors are under a lot of pressure. So while our business is strong, there's obviously some challenges that we face. Costs are going up. Material costs have increased dramatically over the last 12 months. The cities are overwhelmed and more restrictive than ever. So while the market is very strong, there's also a lot of constraints in the market currently.

>> Mike Sauceda:
Investors are driving some of the housing market in Arizona. That has prompted builders like Standard Pacific to crack down on selling to investors because they it's better to have the buyers live in the house.

>> Pat Maroney:
We don't sell to investors. We discourage that. In fact, we do everything we can to prevent that. We have investor addendums that are signed by every potential buyer. We actually lien the house, which is subordinate only to their primary mortgage, but there is a $50,000 penalty through the lien, the lien gets recorded. If they try to sell their house within 18 months or rent their house, they could be subject to a $50,000 fee.

>> Mike Sauceda:
Maroney says that his company is focussed on first-time home buyers and high prices are affecting affordability.

>> Pat Maroney:
We're primarily a first-time buyer builder. About 50% of our business is first-time buyers. We deliver about 1800 homes a year in this market. So we're one of the larger builders. And affordability is a big issue for us. As I mentioned, costs have gone up, impact fees are rising, land costs have gone up, and the ability to deliver an affordable product to our buyers is becoming a much greater challenge.

>> Mike Sauceda:
Eventually Arizona's housing market will slow down, but not just yet.

>> Feliciano Vera:
Here now to talk about the housing market is Jay Butler, Director of the Arizona State University East Arizona Real Estate Center. Also joining me is Elliott Pollack of Elliott D. Pollack and Company, a real estate and economic consulting firm. Elliott, you're predicting a 10% slowdown in the market this year, 15% next year.

>> Elliot Pollack:
Let me say two things about that, for the first three months of this year I have been dead wrong, the market is a lot stronger than last year and last year was the strongest market ever. But even if I'm right a 10% decline would still be an incredibly strong year, the second strongest year in our history. The market isn't going away. Until -- until supply catches up demand you're likely to have a strong market and that probably won't be this year, maybe even not next until you get enough houses coming on stream to meet the demand.

>> Feliciano Vera:
Jay, what's your prediction for housing permits.

>> Jay Butler:
One advantage the first quarter of this year was the first quarter of last year was relatively weak. So it's looking good. The real question is whether this market is going to continue or slow down is going to come in the second quarter for the resale market because that's where you tend to see most of the activity and begin to see new home permits more in the second quarter, too. I think it's a question of how much you believe this market driven by investors and what is their future and are they concerned about let's take our money and run or are they going to -- in here for the long-haul, who are they going to sell to? I think the market is going to slow. I think we're going to begin to see signs of it slowing this year. Again, I don't think it's going to be an appreciable slowdown as long as we pace ourselves.

>> Feliciano Vera:
Elliott, investors start pulling out of the market, how does that temper and set the pace for the balance of the year?

>> Elliott Pollack:
Let me start by giving you some background. Housing prices are rising literally not only throughout our country but throughout the world, the coasts of this country, Paris and London, houses are going through the roof. They don't have an underlying supply of demand. They don't have 100,000 people a year showing up. Housing prices are likely to slow rather than decline because you still have a base level of demand of perhaps, I think, about 38, 40,000 units a year, which is a lot less than we're getting but it's a base of demand that will keep things from falling through the floor. Right now there's at least 15,000 units a year I can't account for, part is investors, part is second home market, part is moving people from apartments, part is people living separately -- moving together. That eventually that won't last forever. When investors don't see the appreciation they're seeing now it's going to be messy but only for a little while.

>> Feliciano Vera:
Interest rates have just ticked down. What if they go back up. Does that coupled with the rising housing prices impact the market?

>> Jay Butler:
IT Does. It begins to affect sort of the lower groups first. The real key to the housing market is not what the median price of the home is. It's the buying the ticket to enter the housing game, and so in California that's a $250,000 condominium. Here it may be a $120,000 home in one of the outlying communities. But higher interest rates, tightening of regular rations, higher FICO scores is beginning to have impacts and the higher home prices have driven up without even the interest rates going up the monthly payment is up almost $400. That's a lot of money for a lot of people and in an economy where income is relatively stable.

>> Feliciano Vera:
In the background piece affordability is -- was mentioned as becoming a pretty big concern with the rise of prices -- of housing prices. To what extent is that a concern across the county, the state and the nation?

>> Elliott Pollack:
Well, clearly if you get large appreciation and then you start to get increases in interest rates it is more difficult for, as Jay said, people at the lower end to get in. It's going to take creative financing, which we haven't seen really since another 80s on the part of builders and on the part of mortgage companies to get these people in the house. But you did have large appreciation in California during periods of very high interest rates in the '80s through this creative financing, and hopefully that will, again, prevent the market from hitting a wall, which I don't see happening.

>> Feliciano Vera:
We're seeing a lot of Californians flush with cash from sales moving into the Valley. Are they having an impact on our prices?

>> Elliott Pollack:
Clearly there's a lot of investors, and Jay is closer to this than I am, but there are boat loads of investors that come in here all the time looking for houses. They basically have been priced out in Las Vegas, they have been priced out in California, so now they're coming to Phoenix and maybe next they'll go to Tucson or Albuquerque or whatever, and they're trying to time it. It is unusual for a place like Phoenix, which where there are usually not supply constraints to have this type of appreciation, and whether it's the fact there is limit supply relative to demand because builders were caught basically flat-footed or it's a feedback loop where the first group comes in and they get some appreciation, and they talk about it at cocktail parties, so a second group comes in, a third group comes in. I don't know. But it's an unusual situation, and it's not likely to last in my opinion.

>> Michael Grant:
During the depression, chewing gum Magnate William Wrigley, Jr., sealed a deal to buy the Biltmore and proceeded to build a house for his wife on the hill overlooking the hotel. In those years both structures were surrounded by desert. As the seasons changed, so did the Wrigleys abode as they and their entourage traveled from Chicago to Catalina Island. House in Phoenix was something of a waystation between those two points. Producer Larry Lemmons and Videographer Richard Torruellas bring us tonight's "Arizona Story." (Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" on player piano)

>> Larry Lemmons:
A relic of a belated era, a player piano manufactures the genius of Gershwin. The rhapsody roams the cultivated spaces of the Wrigley Mansion. Today, the mansion is a nightclub and restaurant, a site for weddings and intimate dinners. Yesterday, it was a winter destination, and like it's contemporary, the Arizona Biltmore Hotel, a place that epitomized gracious living. The histories of the Wrigley Mansion and Biltmore are entwined after gum magnate and Chicago Cubs owner William Wrigley, JR, bought out the MacArthur brothers' interest in the Biltmore, he built the house on the hill overlooking the hotel. Finished in 1931, it was intended as a 50th anniversary gift for his wife Aida.

>> Cynthia Parker:
They had five homes. This one was only a winter cottage. It was the smallest of their five homes at 17,000 square feet. It was just a waystation, a little place to stop over on their way to Catalina Island, Which they owned. So they would pass through here in the wintertime. And that meant that the furnishings that were here were intended to be comfortable and inviting but luxurious, because many dignitaries and important people knew the Wrigleys and came to visit them here.

>> Larry Lemmons:
The mansion was called La Colina Solana, the sunny hill, and provides dramatic views of the Valley. Wrigley employed architect Earl Heitschmidt to design the house.

>> Cynthia Parker:
I think for people who came from to the West from back East they wanted to capture the Southwest charm. So the architecture here has been described as California mission revival, a bit of Mediterranean and a little Spanish all combined.

>> Larry Lemmons:
The style of the mansion contrasts with the Biltmore, which bears an unmistakable debt to Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright was a friend of the Wrigleys but didn't have much respect for the Mansion.

>> Vernon Swaback:
As you might know, there's quite a difference in the architectural character between the Wrigley Mansion and the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. Wright never believed in building on the top of the hill. He talked about his own in Wisconsin, building on the brow. If you built on the top of the hill, you destroy the hill. At one point he said to Phil Wrigley, who was the chewing gum magnate, he said, "Well, Phil I see you stuck your whole wad right on top of the hill."

>> Larry Lemmons:
Unfortunately William Wrigley died only a year after completing the house and left the business to his son Phillip. Today, efforts to restore the house to its original style are ongoing. The Wrigleys' taste has been described as eclectic.

>> Cynthia Parker:
This is the bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Wrigley, the room where he died. It's been restored as much as possible to its original appearance. We have antiqued the walls and restored the original chandelier, and you'll notice also in this room we have one of the unique fireplaces, each one in the house being different.

>> Larry Lemmons:
The house's interior displays a trove of various styles and motifs.

>> Cynthia Parker:
The ceiling in the rotunda was done by a Giovanni Esmeraldi (sp) famous artist who also did the Regal Biltmore in downtown Los Angeles. It is a somewhat Moroccan style with a star in the center radiating outward, and it was done with a combination of gold leaf and rich colors of red and black. The living room also has a fabulous ceiling done by Esmeraldi and in particular it incorporates two motifs. Mr. Wrigley had English heritage, so he has the lion. Mrs. Wrigley traced her lineage to the French, so there is the fleur de lis.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Although the Spanish mission style tends to predominate, the art deco bathrooms surprise with colorful tiles brought via boat, train and mule from Catalina Island. Some of the former bedrooms have been converted to dining rooms.

>> Cynthia Parker:
Some of the furnishings are original. Others are reproductions, but we've worked very hard to try to capture the ambience that the Wrigleys would have had here. The chandelier is something we found in the warehouse of a -- of the right vintage although it might not be original. Another key feature in this room is the fireplace with the Catalina tile and the star motif.

>> Larry Lemmons:
The star motif is pervasive inside and outside the house. It's fashioned into the railings.

>> Cynthia Parker:
The Biltmore has been called the "Star of the Desert" and that spilled over to the Wrigley Mansion.

>> Larry Lemmons:
The spilling over worked both ways. The Wrigleys would sometimes put up their guests in the Biltmore. Later, after the Wrigleys sold the property to Talley Industries, the reverse was true.

>> Mae Sue Talley:
When we had an overflow of guests, we would put some of them up in the Wrigley house because we owned that, of course, and we had kept it very much the same, hadn't changed it. But we put some up there in the bedrooms up there.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Gordie Hormel, an heir to the Hormel MeatPacking fortune, bought the house in 1992 and set about restoring it.

>> Cynthia Parker:
Now the entire mansion, including all of the former bedrooms, are open for wining, dining, entertaining, and it's a wonderful place, especially for weddings and banquets.

>> Larry Lemmons:
Hormel has been known to tickle the ivories as well. He occasionally plays this piano, without the roll, of course. This is a Dual Art Recording Steinway Player Piano. It was the upscale version at the turn of the last century complete with remote control.

>> Cynthia Parker:
It is said that Liberace really wanted to buy this piano, and the stories that he left a blank check and told him to fill in the amount. They refused to do so.

>> Larry Lemmons:
The piano like the house is an artifact amid a city that has flourished around it where once the desert framed the sprawling winter cottage now lush growth lines the pathways leading to well kept gardens. Now the house appears almost hidden by nature, but it doesn't seem to be in the Wrigley's nature to hide. Atop its hill drenched in the desert sun, the Wrigely Mansion reflects a classic style that never really goes out of fashion.

>> Michael Grant:
Thanks very much for joining thus evening. I'm Michael Grant. Have a great one. Good night.

Jay Butler:Director of the Arizona State University East Arizona Real Estate Center;Elliott Pollack:Elliott D. Pollack and Company, real estate and economic consulting firm;

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