Those who can ID this might have been all wet
Sometimes the best-laid plans don't work out.
Such was the case when the developer of a master-planned community in the Foothills sought to make the entrance to one neighborhood stand out by installing a large stone tower that would double as a fountain.
It was a great idea — until the wind started to blow.
"It just got the people too wet," Jane Hoffman, secretary of the Catalina Foothills Estates Neighborhood Association, said about the fountain, which still stands on the north side of the intersection of East River Road and North Via Entrada.
The tower was commissioned in 1966 by John W. Murphey and was designed by Mexican architect Juan Warner Baz. Baz was looking for something different for Neighborhood No. 7 — the first in Pima County to use a pod-style development layout.
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Baz also designed Murphey's Foothills home, as well as the terra-cotta statues that adorn the roof at the Broadway Village shopping center, said Hoffman, who researched the fountain tower's history for a 2005 article that ran in the neighborhood association's newsletter.
The tower was constructed with boulders taken from the back side of the Santa Catalina Mountains, near Oracle, Hoffman wrote.
"The largest crane in Tucson was used to lift the boulders, and the crane snapped in half from the weight of one of the boulders," she wrote. "It took six months to repair the crane, and the company was not willing to work any further on the project."
The intention for the tower was to have water fill the hollow interior, flow off the top of each of the tiers of block and then cascade down the sides, Hoffman wrote.
"Water did flow for several years, but when the winds blew, it was a constant problem of cars getting soaked by the spray," she wrote. "It was finally decided to disconnect the water feature."
Hoffman said the tower is still a source of interest to many, which prompted her to research its history.
"It's always a question people ask," Hoffman said, "especially to people who are new to the neighborhood."
