Street Smarts: Tiny street honors famous Tucson architect

Josias T. Joesler was born in 1895 to Josias and Jennie Joesler in Zurich, Switzerland. He grew up in Arosa, Switzerland, where his father was an architect as well as the mayor.

Joesler would carry on the tradition by studying architecture in Bern, Switzerland. He worked in many European and North African countries as a draftsman, and learned English, Spanish, German, French and Italian .

During a period in the Swiss Army while stationed in Spain, he met and courted Natividad Lorenzo, a native from of Bilboa, Spain. They tied the knot in 1924, and were soon to be found in Havana, Cuba, at that point a tourism spot for Americans looking for a drink during the days of prohibition. They traveled to Mexico City less than a decade after the Mexican Revolution ended.

The offer of steady work by John and Helen Murphey, brought the Joeslers to Tucson. This partnership would endure for about 30 years.

Around 1928, the Murpheys bet their fortune on a 7,000-acre master-planned community we now call the Catalina Foothills, located between Oracle Road and Sabino Canyon, and north of the Rillito River. Water and other services had to be taken to the development, which was far from the city limits. Joesler designed many of the houses in the area.

The Depression slowed progress in the foothills area to a snail’s pace, but the dedicated triad kept at it. Joesler drew the plans for what some consider his masterpiece, St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church, in 1936.

In 1939, he drew the design for the Broadway Village shopping center at East Broadway and South Country Club Road.

His only child, Margret, was born in the late 1930s. The family moved to the east side of town in a house he designed.

In 1941, the Joesler family relocated to Farmington, N.M., where Josias worked on military projects. After four years there, they moved to San Diego.

Joesler continued his work in the Old Pueblo, traveling back and forth, doing projects for the Murpheys as well as for the city of Tucson. In 1954, he drew the plans for the territorial-style Arizona Historical Society museum building.

Joesler died in Tucson of a heart attack on Feb. 12, 1956. Joesler Village on North Campbell Avenue and East River Road is named in his honor also.