Father’s work nears 50-year landmark status

Sedona Historic Preservation Commissioner Bobby Woods, 66, stopped by the Sedona Heritage Museum on May 27 to celebrate National Historic Preservation Month. He shared with the 35 attendees his memories of growing up in Sedona and the Verde Valley as the son of architect Don Peter Woods, who designed over 200 local homes and commercial buildings prior to his death on March 4, 2019.

Don Woods was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 3, 1936, to Donald Peter Sr. and Helen [née Tucker] Woods, his obituary reads. He graduated from Arizona State University School of Architecture soon moved to Sedona to pursue a distinguished career in architecture and to raise his family. He was instrumental in bringing baseball and tennis to this small community and “You would often hear him referred to as ‘Coach Woods.’”

Bobby Woods said the scenery is why a lot of people move to Sedona in the first place, recounting how often he had heard of people deciding to relocate after a single visit, and that love of the views shaped his father’s work.

“He would open up a lot of glass, as much as possible, to those views if you had them on your property,” Bobby Woods said. “To get the view, you like to be able to see over the top of the mountains and get a little sky. Some of those early homes in Sedona had very low glass lines, maybe under 7 feet high, and he started bumping that glass up a little bit to 8 feet and more.”

The history is personal for Bobby Woods as a Historic Preservation commissioner, he now helps weigh in on which of Sedona’s buildings get Historic Landmark status with many of his father’s buildings approaching the 50-year threshold for inclusion.

“What was interesting was hearing about him as a human being,” Historic Preservation Commission Chairman and Sedona Heritage Museum Executive Director Nate Meyers said. “I’ve heard about him as an architect, I’ve heard about him as like somebody who liked to play tennis, but to get to know a little bit more about the human being in a sense of humor, the thing that stuck with me is that he called his first clients [‘The Suffering Seven’] and his self-deprecating humor.”

Bobby Woods said that one of the Suffering Seven buildings is what he would like to see end up with landmark status, and that he has had early discussions with one of the homeowners.

“Almost all of [The Suffering Seven] were that mid-century one-way leaning roof, very slightly sloping roof, very simple, everything faced towards the view for the most part, and the lower end of the roof was on the entry side, and then you’d go into the entry when you came into the house and open up to the higher glass facing the views, so they were mostly that style of house,” Bobby Woods said.

The Junipine Resort in Oak Creek Canyon was one of his father’s best projects, Bobby Woods said.

“If you go there and stay, you get a good sense of being in the canyon and opening up to the water,” Woods said. “There’s so many units in there, if you drive by it, you might not realize how dense it is. Dad was careful that he hid it between the trees and bounced it up and down that canyon to where you don’t really get a sense of it. It’s such a short distance from Sedona, but you’re instantly in a different atmosphere.”

“I am personally looking forward to being able to, with the Historic Preservation Commission, being able to examine more deeply some of his, some of his Don Woods’ designs, and, hopefully landmark a couple of them, because he played such an important role in building out this community,” Meyers said.

If any buildings ultimately earn the designation may hinge on the citywide survey now underway. Consulting firm Logan Simpson is cataloging every structure in Sedona city limits over 50 years old. The full report anticipated by the end of the year.

Meyers said the commission is awaiting the survey results but expressed interest and optimism.