There’s no doubt that the range of styles encompassed within Phoenix’s central historic districts reflect a singular period of the city’s past, but according to Jennifer Kitson, a doctoral student in social geography at Arizona State University who has been studying what attracts new residents to historic neighborhoods, history itself doesn’t seem to be the lure.

“The idea of history almost never comes out in anyone’s conception when they talk about living in a historic district,” Kitson says. Instead, they talk about their neighborhoods being “distinctive,” “unique” and “diverse.”

GG George herself seemed baffled when asked to explain her passion for saving old homes.

“I don’t think anyone has ever asked me that before,” she says, and then after an uncharacteristically flustered moment of silence, “What is the passion for a man? How do you explain it? I don’t know.”

But George and her allies will have to do better than that. While historic preservation may have not needed justification before, that’s no longer the case in an era of budget crises and declining revenues. The city has now slashed the budget for its office of historic preservation by more than 50 percent and cut its staff by almost half. Even as residents campaigned in vain earlier this year to restore some of that funding, they faced another threat as Arizona’s senate finance committee considered a repeal of the 30-year-old incentive that reduces property taxes on registered historic homes by up to 50 percent in order to help close the state’s $3 billion budget deficit. Couple that with declining home values and the fact that a ballot proposition passed by voters three years ago has virtually made the designation of any new historic districts impossible in the state, and it starts to look like the glory days of historic preservation in Phoenix may well be over.

It’s one of those brilliant February days where everything seems bright to the point of bursting, especially here in Willo, where the neighborhood’s 22nd-annual home tour is in full swing. The bougainvilleas are blooming, the lawns are shockingly green, and all along Holly Street a string of vintage cars gleams in the sun like hard candy. It’s Valentine’s Day to boot, but that alone doesn’t seem to account for all the love that’s in the air.

As the choir from Emerson Elementary School struggles through the refrain of “O, Susanna,” parents pulling toddlers in Radio Flyer wagons amble through a street fair that offers everything from neck massages to artisanal chocolate. But it’s the 10 homes that make up this year’s tour that are the real draw, including a couple of rambling, 1920s Spanish Colonials, a 1941 Monterey-style ranch and, of course, a classic Tudor, where visitors are encouraged by the guidebook to “imagine relaxing poolside in back, reading in the small side porch, or warming by one of the 2 fireplaces.”

Neighborhood preservationist Andrea Del Galdo’s 1928 California-style bungalow in the Coronado historic district

Most of the tour-goers seem lost in a nostalgic haze, and none seem to mind that the lines to enter many of the houses stretch halfway down the block, even as Ollie the Trolley, essentially a bus disguised as an old-timey streetcar, disgorges more people. Everyone seems to ignore the lone derelict property along the route, with a dirt yard and peeling paint, which appears entirely out of place amid its immaculately restored neighbors, like a mute, bitter old aunt who’s been wheeled out to a family picnic.

As sunglasses come off and eyes adjust to take in the exposed beams in a living room or a Mexican-tiled fireplace, a rapturous murmuring often ensues: “Oh, isn’t this cute” and “Adorable!” The homeowners themselves are typically on hand, and though they invariably offer a warm welcome, it’s hard not to detect a hint of forced humility, which seems understandable. After all, not everyone owns a house where more than 4,000 strangers would be willing to plunk down $15 a head just to spend a few fleeting moments fawning over the white carerra marble in your renovated kitchen.

Out in the guesthouse of a 1939 Art Moderne gem, one thirty-something tour-goer seems beside herself, gushing, “Oh my Lord, this is so nice!” When asked if she lives in Willo, she replies, “I wish!” Like her parents, who are with her as well, she lives in north-central Phoenix, but the family makes the rounds of the various historic home tours every year. “Encanto, Coronado, Windsor Square,” her mother ticks off. They’ve lived in Phoenix for 30 years, and they all remember a time when they would never have dreamed of spending a Sunday – Valentine’s Day no less – in this part of town.

Don Mertes remembers those days well. He moved into Coronado 15 years ago and says, “In my first week, suddenly there were these ghetto birds over my house, floodlights sweeping the street, and then the police show up and tackle this guy in my front yard. I just sat on the porch and cried, thinking I’d made a horrible mistake.”

Mertes is a local real estate agent with a Website devoted to historic properties that encourages prospective buyers to “go ahead, live in the past” and to “just say NO to cookie-cutter architecture.”  

Such sentiments, which seem practically universal among residents in the historic districts, were strong enough to keep Mertes and his fellow urban pioneers from fleeing as the process of gentrification slowly but steadily gained momentum. But what encouraged many homeowners to stay were also financial incentives from the city, and even the state, in the form of the substantial property tax break and up to $10,000 in matching grants drawn from the voter-approved bond funds to rehabilitate the exteriors of their homes.

While the bond money remains, it’s becoming harder for the city’s historic preservation staff to dole it out, given the drastic cuts to their office. According to Barbara Stocklin, Phoenix’s historic preservation officer, her department used to review grant applications three times a year. Now it’s once every 16 months.