Ralph Haver

Ralph Haver was an architect working in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, USA, from 1945 until the early 1980s. Haver designed the Mid-Century Modern Haver Homes, affordable tract housing executed in a contemporary modern style.

Born in California and trained at USC Pasadena as an architect, Haver arrived in Phoenix immediately after his service in World War II and began working with his brother Robert (a builder) and father Harry (a brick mason). He settled in what would soon become Uptown Phoenix — two miles outside city boundaries at the time. His first set of experimental modern contemporary ranch homes was built in the Hixson Homes subdivision near 12th Street and Highland—now called Canal North.

He soon mentored under Ed Varney and remained lifelong friends and collaborators with him even after breaking off and creating his own firm. Ralph Haver is responsible for so much of the design of postwar Phoenix that he ranked among one of the largest firms of the time. He designed churches, schools, municipal buildings, malls, multifamily housing, tract housing and custom homes. Haver especially worked with prominent housing developers, including Del Webb, Fred Woodward, David Friedman and Dell Trailor.

Haver's Cine Capri theater was razed in the 1990s, and the 1960 Coronado High School was largely demolished by 2007. The Polynesian-styled Kon Tiki motel, an icon along Van Buren Avenue, was also demolished.

It was estimated by the firm that there are 20,000 Haver designed tract homes in Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado. Haver Home characteristics include low-sloped rooflines, clerestory windows, massive mantle-less chimney volumes, floor-to-ceiling walls of glass, brick or block construction, clinker bricks in the wainscoting, angled porch posts and brick patios. Homes are typically less than 1400 square feet and significantly less in the postwar era due to federal mandate in conservation of materials.

Blueprints as verification for authenticity of Haver designs are rare, as many buildings were created outside of Phoenix city boundaries at the time. Many of Haver's drawings, renderings and records were destroyed in 1993 when the firm finally went out of business—they ended up in a dumpster when the last office built and designed by the firm on 16th Street was abated.

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