Phoenix has its very own castle, and it rises in tiers like a wedding cake above a sea of cactus. Tovrea Castle at Carraro Heights, at 5025 East Van Buren Street, sits atop a cactus-covered hill in east-central Phoenix and has intrigued generations of Valley residents — and once you see it glowing against the desert sky, it is easy to understand why.
Italian immigrant Alessio Carraro built the castle in the late 1920s, from 1929 to 1931, as the centerpiece of a planned destination resort. The Great Depression changed those plans, and Carraro sold the property in 1931 to cattle baron Edward A. Tovrea, whose family made it their home. Today the castle is owned by the City of Phoenix, is part of the Phoenix parks system, and is designated one of the Phoenix Points of Pride, listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1996.
Around the four-tiered, Italianate landmark stretches the Carraro Cactus Garden: 44 acres holding more than 5,000 individual cacti in over 100 varieties. The nonprofit Tovrea Carraro Society cares for the site and leads guided tours of the grounds, the castle’s main floor and its basement, sharing the stories of the Carraro and Tovrea families along the way.
Tours are offered on select days and are so popular that tickets are distributed through a lottery on the Society’s website, so planning ahead is part of the adventure. For anyone who loves desert beauty, local history and a skyline view with a story, this joyful Phoenix landmark deserves a place at the top of the list.
Photo: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
