Windsor Square Historic District

Uptown Phoenix, platted before the crash

Windsor Square Historic District occupies ground close to where Central Avenue meets Camelback Road on Phoenix’s northeast side, in Maricopa County. It was listed on the National Register on 13 December 2000 (NRIS 00001499) for architecture, community planning and development, and politics/government. The district holds about 260 properties. It takes in the Windsor Square Subdivision, platted in 1929, plus parts of the earlier Lamson (1913) and later Cuesta Vista (1944) plats that share the same housing mix and street character along the north edge.

When Windsor Square opened, it lay north of the city limits. Location on Central Avenue and an upscale plan were meant to sell high-quality lots to buyers who wanted an uptown residential address. The layout borrows English Garden City and City Beautiful ideas: flood irrigation for dense landscaping, sidewalks, curbs, ornamental street lighting, curvilinear paired streets that create irregular lots, and a small central park. A monument sign at Central and Medlock marked the entry. Non-resident through traffic was discouraged by design.

The formal opening was 24 February 1929. Owens-Dinmore was the developer; Lincoln Finance Company announced twelve speculative houses. The stock market crash that October ended the boom. Only about six houses were under construction or finished before bankruptcy and lot auctions in early 1930.

How the houses actually got built

Most of the district filled in later. Phoenix architecture shifted in the 1930s from Period Revival toward Ranch and Modern forms. City historic-preservation materials flag three 1939 houses as markers of that shift: a modern/Southwestern-styled home Mrs. L. H. Franklin had built at 5135 North Second Street; the International Style Lufty house at 5050 North Second Street; and a rectilinear modern design Lescher and Mahoney produced at 5053 North Sixth Street for client W. R. Montague.

The heaviest building wave came after World War II. By the late 1940s Ranch was the dominant Valley house type. Of the 260 homes in the district, 178 are Ranch variants. Other styles present include Spanish Colonial, Pueblo, English Tudor/Cottage, and smaller numbers of International and Southwestern designs. Period of significance in city materials is given as roughly 1920–1950; the National Register record also notes significant years 1929, 1939, and 1940. Contributing building counts in the registration form run on the order of 205 contributing and about 50 noncontributing.

Visiting a residential district

This is a private residential neighborhood under Phoenix Historic Preservation overlay rules. Exterior modifications and new construction are subject to design review by the city’s Historic Preservation Office before permits issue. Streets are public; yards, driveways, and interiors are not. There is no visitor center, admission fee, or scheduled public tour run by the National Register program.

Boundaries on the National Register record run roughly along Seventh Street, Camelback Road, Central Avenue, and Oregon Avenue. Park legally on public streets; do not block driveways. Summer temperatures in central Phoenix regularly exceed 110°F; walking is best in early morning or winter months. The district is useful as a field example of how one pre-crash subdivision absorbed Depression-era and postwar housing taste without losing its irrigated streetscape — not as a sightseeing destination with open houses.

Omitted here because not verified from the sources above: current HOA rules, any self-guided walking-tour map maintained by residents, and individual house interiors.