Phoenix’s Wedding Cake Castle

Who can say when the dream ended? The Depression had deepened, the housing market had collapsed. Alessio Carraro, an Italian immigrant, had invested two years of his life and thousands of dollars to build a house on a hilltop between Tempe and Phoenix, but after living there for just a year, he sold the property.

The house was built in a curious architectural style, a tiered wedding cake of stucco draped with about 1,000 lights atop a hill thick with saguaros he planted.

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