Main House, Landscaping

This property sits on top of a hill, and while affords the home great views and cool breezes, it does create an erosion problem during the occasional hard rains. The solution was to create a number of different terrace levels around the property, and since I’ve always been keen on recycling (& on drinking good beer & wine) it came to me one day to create these small retaining walls out of empty beer and wine bottles. These walls consist of a rock or painted cement top over several layers of bottles set in cement, over a footer of river rock in a trench that averages about a foot deep. I estimate that there are somewhere between 12,000 to 14,000 bottles in these walls, and no, I didn’t personally drink all that booze, most of the bottles came from Le Sans Souci, a French restaurant in Cave Creek.

A substantial amount of finishing work has been completed on the landscaping in the last few months since the website was first put up.

The steps leading to the front door from the driveway have all been widened and restored by an old world European stone-mason.

The tops of all of the retaining walls completely surrounding the main house (built out of cement, stone, and beer & wine bottles) have been sealed and painted, and the individual terraced levels are being finished off with a layer of crushed granite in the “Mesa Brown” color. This work will be 100% complete by the end of July.

The rear yard has a wonderful grove of fruit trees, all of which have wells around them to retain rain water. These wells are being finished with red brick pavers, after which the interior will be filled with about a 1 inch layer of contrasting color crushed granite.

Front Yard Terracing & stairway as seen from guest-house terrace:

Front Yard Terracing (Bottle Walls)

Rear Yard Fruit Trees & watering wells:

Rear Yard Fruit Trees & watering wells:

Contact Info: Al Trachtman, Tel: 480 488-4676 Cell: 480 390-8757 eMail: at@tncd.com