Posted By Les Conklin on May 17, 2021

By Les Conklin
Originally Published A Peek at the Peak, October 2003

You just know that a place named Carefree is a place with a heart, a place to relax, leave worries behind, and enjoy a refreshing atmosphere of breezy sunshine with mountain backdrops. It’s always been that way in Carefree! Marketing pamphlet distributed by the merchants of Easy Street and Spanish Village, Carefree, June 2002.*

The Discovery

KT Palmer stands in front of his homestead on the western slopes of Pinnacle Peak.

In the spring of 1933, a man headed east out of Phoenix on Indian School Road. He was taking his two children on a Sunday drive, giving his wife a chance to rest. He quickly passed through Scottsdale, just a few buildings then, and continued east on dirt roads toward the mountains. He turned onto a winding, bone-jarring, attention-demanding track heading northeast. He pushed onward, eventually arriving at the foothills of the McDowell Mountains. The man, Kenyon Turner Palmer – his friends called him K.T. – recalled the scene in his autobiography.

The ironwood trees were in bloom, and seemingly for miles around there was nothing but ironwood trees. The morning light was just right. Back of all and forming the right background were the looming McDowell mountains in varying shades of blue, with here and there a giant saguaro, highlighted by the sunlight … For the first time I was thrilled by the Arizona landscape. Now, on this Sunday morning, on a rough and rocky road leading into the foothills of the McDowell Mountains, I experienced a conversion… I was overwhelmed with a desire to possess this land, to be a part of all its beauty.

K.T. Palmer

Palmer, one of the developers of Carefree, was a small, dynamic, red-headed, hard-working army veteran. He came to Arizona for his health and enrolled in the University of Arizona. He was forced to drop out of school, spending a year in the hospital battling what was diagnosed as tuberculosis. He returned to the university, his illness in remission, to earn a law degree. By 1933, he had accumulated a wife, two children, a house, a mortgage and a law practice with too few clients. Palmer described his financial situation as “desperate.”

Pinnacle Peak Connection

In the spring of 1933, Palmer and his family decided to invest what little time, money and comfort they had to possess land in the special area he had discovered.

As a veteran, he could obtain up to 640 acres of government land by paying a small fee and filing a homestead application. He was required to live on the land for seven months, improve it, and pay for all improvements. Most veterans chose farmable land near roads. Not Palmer. His homestead was located on the lower slopes on the west side of remote Pinnacle Peak. He had to cut a trail from Pinnacle Peak Road, then a dirt road, to access his land. He had to expand the trail into a road in order to transport the supplies he needed for his $400 shack. There was no electricity, no telephone, no well, and the nearest neighbor was five miles away. From their shack the family had clear views to the north, south and west. There were no signs of human habitation in any direction.

For seven months, Palmer drove 60 miles round trip to get to his law practice. When he wasn’t commuting and working, he was clearing brush and making his homestead. Palmer used every scrap of money he could find to buy land for $1 an acre. He then resold it for $3, $10 and $25 an acre. When November 1934 arrived, the family had put in seven months, gained title to the land and moved back to Phoenix.

Friends came to his “ranch” for picnics, and he began buying and selling land for them. Palmer became an expert in Pinnacle Peak land and eventually acted as a broker for many land deals. Palmer wrote, “My constant effort through many years was to interest the rich and artistic in the Pinnacle Peak area … the same general policy that we followed in the creation of Carefree.”

Carefree Founders Supported Drive, (l-r) Les Rhuart, Tom Darlington, K.T. Palmer

Tom Darlington

About 1945, K.T. Palmer attended a Kiwanis Club luncheon in Phoenix. The conversation turned to real estate. Palmer and the businessman across the table – a man Palmer was meeting for the first time – shared the dream of planning a new town. The businessman – who would later partner with Palmer to develop Carefree – was Tom Darlington.

Darlington was born in Idaho and graduated from Stanford University. He came to Phoenix to manage a plant that AirResearch opened at Sky Harbor Airport during World War II. When he arrived, Darlington expected that the Valley of the Sun would be another stopover in his career that had already taken him to England and the eastern United States. He was an excellent negotiator, possessed of calm, steady reason and good judgment.

Scottsdale Frustration

By 1950, Palmer had given up on his law practice, run unsuccessfully for Congress, opened and sold a successful secondhand business and retired. Darlington remained in Arizona after AirResearch shut down its plant at the end of World War II. Both men were very active in the community and real estate. About 1950, K.T. Palmer, Tom Darlington, and another man opened a small real estate office in Scottsdale.

Scottsdale, incorporated in 1951, was beginning a period of rapid growth. Palmer was president of the Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce. Darlington was the president of the Paradise Valley Improvement Association. Darlington also created an innovative arts and crafts center in Scottsdale that was attracting an ever-increasing number of visitors.

Palmer and Darlington suggested changes Scottsdale should make to improve long-range planning and leverage the town’s unique location and reputation as an arts and resort center. The partners’ recommendation fell on deaf ears. As Scottsdale grew, so did the partners’ frustration and desire to create their own planned community.

Location, Location, Location!

The development of Carefree center began in 1959.

Palmer and Darlington began the search for a site for their planned community northeast of Scottsdale. They opened an office in Cave Creek (now the Town Dump store) to facilitate the quest. They first considered the Pinnacle Peak area where Palmer owned 2,000 acres, but Palmer felt that the water supply was inadequate for a new town. The partners looked at and rejected the northeast corner of Scottsdale and Pinnacle Peak Roads, known as Curry’s Corner, and the land one mile south of what is now Carefree Highway, in the area of The Summit shopping area on Scottsdale Road. Palmer and Darlington also considered implementing their planned community concepts in Cave Creek and concluded that local leaders – like those in Scottsdale – would not be receptive to their ideas.

The land they finally chose was called the “old goat farm,” a parcel located on the road to Camp Creek, now Cave Creek Road. A gravel trail provided the only access. Scottsdale was a distant 18 miles away across the vacant desert.

In 1955, the partners bought the 400 acres for $44,000. Their purchase included a shack, a well, a pump and a pump house, all located at what is now the Carefree central business district.

Dream to Reality

Carefree Airport

The planning of Carefree took nearly three years. Raising additional money, the partners gradually acquired more than 2,000 acres adjacent to the goat ranch. Palmer and Darlington persuaded Maricopa County to extend Scottsdale Road north from Pinnacle Peak Road to Cave Creek Road.

In 1959, Leslie Rhuart became the general manager of the growing project. Rhuart had been an associate of Darlington’s at AirResearch and was one of the original developers of one of the first retirement communities in the United States – Youngstown, Arizona -located near Sun City.

The Name’s the Thing

The two partners wanted a name for their community that delivered a marketing punch. In For Land’s Sake, Palmer recalled, “So as we were driving back to Scottsdale that first day after we had settled on our location, Tom and I were tossing names back and forth. We tested and discarded Sweetheart, Arizona; Honey, Arizona; and other sugary names. I liked the idea of a one-letter name … there were no one-letter towns in the United States. I suggested I, Arizona; Y, Arizona; O, Arizona. Tom wouldn’t buy them.” Later, they casually named their development company, Carefree Development Company, and the name caught on. Everyone began referring to the place as Carefree.

There are several stories about how attention-grabbing street names such as Wampum Way (location of the first bank), Easy Street, Home Hum Road and Lazy Lane came about. One story has Palmer, the sales manager, and a group of their friends brainstorming over numerous drinks during a long intermission at a Phoenix theatre the evening before Carefree’s plat was to be presented to county officials. Another story has Palmer, Darlington, and Rhuart inventing names while playing poker (a version of the Show Low story?). Rhuart says the names resulted from a business meeting. No matter how the names were chosen, they achieved the desired purpose, leading to the publication of numerous articles and catching the attention of many prospective buyers.

Designed with Care

Desert Forest Golf Course

The design of Carefree was hardly carefree. The partners wanted to create an exclusive retreat that would attract the wealthy and the artistic. Palmer and Darlington sought to preserve the natural beauty of the area. They took existing rock formations and terrain into consideration when plotting home sites and roads. Their plans blended Spanish and contemporary architecture and called for a golf course, a fine restaurant, an arts and crafts center, an airport, and of course, a sales office.

In 1959, the first well was drilled, followed by the installation of pumps and water lines. A 1,098-foot deep well was drilled for the golf course. The centerpiece of the business district was a huge sundial. The first building in Carefree faced the sundial and held a restaurant and the partners’ real estate office.

Homes of the Rich and Famous

Lots went on sale in 1959. Initially, lots were five acres, but they were later downsized to two acres. In the first six months, nearly half of the residential and commercial lots on 500 acres were sold.

One of the first homes built in Carefree served as the location for the 1969 MGM movie, Zabriskie Point. As part of the movie’s production, a full-size replica of the home was created and dynamited with 1,300 pounds of explosives at the Carefree Studio. Palmer and Darlington also built beautiful homes on Black Mountain. Corporate executives and celebrities, including Hugh Downs and Paul Harvey, built homes in Carefree.

Early on, there was grocery store, a drug store and a post office. The golf course opened in 1962. Residents recall that there were more golf carts than cars in the village of about 20 homes. The Carefree Inn, originally name the Desert Forest Inn, opened in 1963, and was the center of social life. No wonder! The wives of the Inn’s investors often used the community’s 20-page phone book to invite residents to an impromptu “TGIF” party. The International Restaurant opened in February 1963 featuring the motif and cuisine of Africa, Asia, the Mediterranean, the Nordic, Germany, North America and South America. The airport was built in 1962. Hugh Downs landed an old biplane at the airport’s opening. Spanish Village was added in 1968, developed by Palmer and another Carefree resident. By the late 1960s, most of the original plans for Carefree had been implemented and many early visitors were returning to become full or part-time residents.

Late Night Phone Call

Fearful that gas stations and motels would replace the desert, Carefree residents helped establish the Desert Foothills Scenic Drive. Today, the drive is cared for by Scottsdale. Courtesy Carefree Enterprise.

In 1969, J.T. Palmer had finished working on his autobiography for the day. A few minutes earlier, he had typed the words Spanish Village for the first time in his manuscript. The phone rang. The caller was the operator of the restaurant in the Spanish Village. He told Palmer that Darlington had suddenly collapsed and died while dining with friends. Palmer wrote, “Tom Darlington was dead – a most unusual man, but above all a friend, a friend not just of K.T. Palmer but of countless others the world over.” Dwight Hudson, who had sold land used to create Carefree to the partners in 1955, is quoted as saying, “If it hadn’t been for Darlington, it would never have come to pass. He was a man of his word and he held tight to the dream.”

Final Desert Trip

Palmer’s love of the rugged land northeast of Phoenix began near Pinnacle Peak in 1933. That attraction led to the creation of Carefree 22 years later. K.T. Palmer died in the desert near his Carefree home in 1976 at age 77. Palmer, with a long history of health problems, including two heart attacks, had seen his doctor that morning and was depressed. He died from an overdose of medication mixed with alcohol.

Palmer closes his autobiography as follows, “From up on Black Mountain I can look down on all the fine houses, built on lots I had sold, facing streets that I had named; I could see the business buildings I had helped to establish¦ These things were not transitory; they would go on whether I did anything about them or not, whether I lived or died. After all, that was what mattered. Taking everything into account, Carefree, my last big business venture, is a community of which to be proud.”

AMEN! Today, the northernmost part of Scottsdale Road, from Carefree Highway to Cave Creek Road, is named Tom Darlington Drive. The circle around the sundial bears K.T. Palmer’s name. The quality, lifestyle and preserved natural beauty of Carefree reflect the careful, far-sighted planning of both men.

Postscript

After more than ten years of discussions, petitions, two incorporation efforts and a court case with Scottsdale, Carefree became an official Arizona town in 1984. The 2000 Census showed that Carefree had grown to more than 3,000 residents. Carefree strives to maintain a semi-rural, single family residential community while still being part of the Valley of the Sun. Strict building regulations and zoning codes and a native plant ordinance protect the natural desert and the character of the neighborhoods. Carefree celebrated the grand opening of its new town center in November 2002.

Related Books & Websites

The primary sources for this article were K.T. Palmer’s autobiography, For Land’s Sake, Cave Creek and Carefree, Arizona“ A History of the Desert Foothills by Frances C. Carlson and Carefree, Cave Creek Foothills, Life in the Sonoran Sun by the Foothills Community Association.

Carefree Website Website

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