New Ranch it was called.

Steel. Cast concrete. Glass. Sensually smooth stucco. Amazing vistas. On a five acre lot with more boulders and saguaros per square foot than I had ever seen. I guess that is why the community was called Saguaro Ranch, at the northern edge of Tucson.

The experience of getting here is part of the journey. It begins with a tunnel through a mountain, like a near-death experience. Arriving at the home is a continuation of that mystery approach. A sweeping arc of a low ascending 30″ thick wall invites you to park, away from the house, so you can stop and behold its best face, and approach. An accordion array of ascending steel panels catch the waning light of day, blazing orange in the sun, inviting you closer, to touch. A curving path leads you to a courtyard pivot gate.

Getting closer.

The front courtyard water feature greets you the moment you pass through, a reflecting pool that showcases the inverted image of a singular ironwood tree, stopping you, speechless.

You still haven’t arrived at the front door. Never mind, for it is glass and imperceptible. Transparent like the back wall of the great hall that you see through, to the exposed chiseled face of the mountain. Perhaps now you are arriving!

You step out to the back, and you are welcomed home by a sweeping arc of water, overflowing to accept you, mirroring the rugged face of the earth this home is hewn from.

Now you can rest. You have arrived. Home, at the Ranch.