This is My Thing: Buckeye

This is My Thing: Buckeye

by | Sep 17, 2013 | Architectural Planning, Architecture, Blog, Planning

I don’t have a signature style, but I do have a signature approach to building projects.  I like to pursue projects that I have a fondness for.   A few years back I asked myself what I would really like to work on as an architect and I thought of fixing up historic buildings in Buckeye, Arizona.  From Serbin Studio it takes about 20 minutes for me to get to historic Buckeye.  It makes sense to work in my own community.  I feel at home when I am in Buckeye.  The people who live in the Town still read the paper and talk to one another daily.  When I say talk to each other, I mean talking face to face at the Elk’s Lodge or just in passing at Café 25:35, a local haunt for burgers with names like Palo Verde!  Alice Dryer, owner of Dryer Insurance has a penguin figurine collection that would blow you clear to Tonopah.  What more could you want in a Town?

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Monroe Street Scape 2013-2014

The Monroe Street Scape project is a collaborative project between Serbin Studio and Buckeye Main Street Coalition.  Serbin Studio provided the necessary drawings to convey what the business owners wanted in terms of the most logical placement of trees, banner poles, brick cross walks and side walk shade structures.  This is an ongoing project that will be executed by WC Scoutten in collaboration with Buckeye Main Street Coalition.

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Miller Jackson Gateway 2012

This project started with the Town of Buckeye tapping Buckeye Main Street Coalition to do something about the blight on the N/E corner of Jackson and Miller.  Main Street and Serbin Studio provided a wall concept that would allow for partial screening of the trailer park.  I mean the roof pitches of the trailers really weren’t so bad if the base was cleaned up with a residential scaled wall. The key was to get the height just right…not too tall and not too low.  We didn’t want residents to hang laundry over the wall *don’t get any ideas now* but we didn’t want the wall to cover too much.  BMSC is not done on this corner, we still want to add native trees and a horse trail.

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Buckeye Graphics 2012

The Buckeye Women’s Club was talking about creating a cookbook of local recipes for the Arizona Centennial.  A standard cover for the Buckeye Valley Heritage Cookbook was being kicked around so I offered to help them out with creating something that would be more custom made.   All the photos used on the cover were carefully selected by Pat Rovey and Verlyne Meck. Serbin Studio did the watercolor sun and composed the graphics in photoshop.  Rotary Club of Buckeye needed a new image for their trading banner.  Lara Serbin worked with Charlene Powers *it was all Charlene’s idea* to create the four quadrants that represent Buckeye’s major industries that keeps Buckeye Open For Business.

 

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Wayfinding Signage 2012-2013

Buckeye Main Street Coalition and Serbin Studio was involved in the design of the Wayfinding signage posts that cover Monroe Avenue and Miller Avenue in down town Buckeye.  WC Scoutten was the engineer and Motivational Systems constructed the monuments for the Town of Buckeye.  The signs help direct visitors to the local attractions with colorful arrows against a dark rustic metal shingle sign.  The corrugated panels are a throw back to the local cotton gin construction materials.

East Buckeye Park and Ride 2012

East Buckeye Park and Ride 2012

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East Buckeye Park and Ride 2011-2012

Serbin Studio was the architect of record for this Town of Buckeye public project.  W.C. Scoutten was the engineer for the project and Hunter Construction was the contractor.  The project includes plenty of parking structure canopies so you can leave your car in the shade while taking the bus to a far flung destination.  It is a connector for transit situated along Interstate 10 and Jackrabbit Road.  You can see it from the freeway if you look for the shining galvanized silo that anchors the site.

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Benbow Veterans Park 2011-2012

This was the first project I worked collaboratively with Buckeye Main Street Coalition.  It is a park dedicated to the fallen military and civil officers of Buckeye, Arizona.  The original memorial wall was situated at the Buckeye Police Precinct on South Apache Road. The wall was in bad shape and out of the public foot traffic on Main Street.  BMSC transformed the historic Sidewalk Park to Benbow Veterans Park with a new memorial wall in black polished granite and benches for public events like Veterans Day.   Since the groundbreaking ceremony in 2012 many people visit the park daily to chill out under the huge mesquite shade trees and talk to Frank.

Jimmy Mack…all this time I thought it was Jimmy Back. Now I can sleep.

Sustainable Architecture in Valencia

Sustainable Architecture in Valencia

by | Aug 16, 2013 | Architectural Planning, Architecture, Blog

Buckeye, Arizona is a fast growing Town located about 45 minutes west of down town Phoenix.  Serbin Studio’s is minutes away from historic Buckeye so we spend a lot of time in Buckeye.  One of Buckeye’s long standing traditions is funerals.  Buckeye is a tight knit community where people recall going to kindergarten with their accountant or meeting their future husband when they were 5 years old at a garden party.  I have been around long enough to know that funerals are big social events in Buckeye.  Today, I showed up on the wrong Friday for a funeral but it turned out great because I took photos of the 1928 Spanish Colonial Ganley’s Buckeye Funeral Home. Could you just see me with my big camera taking photos of the building with everyone standing outside being all respectful. I got all my photos out of my system for next Friday. I was lucky to be able to chat with the owner Phil Ganley who is the second generation of Ganley’s Buckeye Funeral Home.   While he was moving a casket out of his suburban at 9:00am in the morning at the corner of Baseline Road and Central Boulevard I asked him if I could take some photos of his building.

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During the late 1920’s this building was part of an expansive idea to create an upscale town called Valencia just north of the train tracks and Buckeye Canal. The Miller Cattle Company was the developer who surveyed the land and commissioned this building to serve as a retail anchor.  When the Ganleys moved to Buckeye in 1939 they occupied this building which was built with retail in mind originally, but the Great Depression created a change in direction.   Phil explained that when he was a boy the family lived on the second floor and he would stand on the balcony in the photo above and look at the southern mountain range with down town Buckeye in the foreground.  Ganley remembered nothing being around this building when he was a kid.  He would ride his bike into down town Buckeye to see what was going on.

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The building has been well preserved and still has charming detail.  Indigo and terra cotta ceramic tile was a sustainable choice for the base of the arched storefront.  The stucco is smooth and reminds me of Andalusian architecture of Spain the way it is scallops cut outs adorn openings.  The white stucco contrasts with the vintage terra cotta roof tiles.  The doors and window frames are original wood frame and maintained with many layers of teal paint.  I did take a peek through the corner window. I was standing under a petite black metal light fixture where a bird had made a nest in the cage like housing. The white lace curtains seemed they had been drawn back for hundreds of years. Faded floral wall paper, pastel wood trim and vinyl squares made up the interior finish.  I could imagine someone named Joy or Marty arranging a floral arrangement in front of the reach in cooler.   Thanks to the Ganleys this classic building is still in operation and continues to creates an elegant place for local families to gather and pay their respect to ones who have died.   With the help of my book Buckeye The First 100 Years 1888-1988 I can safely say that when this book was published in 1988, “Of the approximately five thousand people in the three cemeteries, he (Phil’s father, Paul Ganley) has buried at least four thousand of them during his 47 years in Buckeye.”.  If you want to see some great examples of sustainable architecture take a visit to Buckeye, Arizona.

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