By Lindsay Walker
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After a long restoration process and delays brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, one of Tempe’s most historic buildings has been rededicated. 

Hayden House, located at the southwest corner of Mill Avenue and Rio Salado Parkway, is considered the oldest continuously inhabited building in Maricopa County. Now, it’s the home of the Downtown Tempe Authority offices after undergoing significant restoration with the help of the city and a dedicated developer. 

Built in 1874, Hayden House was the original home of Charles Trumball Hayden, the owner and founder of the historic Hayden Flour Mill, also located on Mill Avenue. Hayden is also the father of  the late Arizona Sen. Carl Hayden. 

“It went from being his house to a restaurant and a few other uses,” explained Kris Baxter-Ging, a city of Tempe spokesperson. “Michael Monti had Monti’s La Casa Vieja restaurant for a number of years there and he made several additions that were not historic. The city of Tempe really wanted to preserve the building. The house is prime real estate. That area is amazing in terms of the amount of growth that we've seen.”

According to Baxter-Ging, Tempe lore says that Trumball Hayden climbed up what is now known as A Mountain when he first arrived in town and saw the Salt River, which was impossible to cross in certain spots at the time. He eventually saw a place where a ferry could cross and could channel to build a flour mill. He started the ferry, built the mill and then built his adobe home. 

Monti’s took over the property in the 1950s until its closing in 2014.

Developer Hensel Phelps approached Tempe about restoring Hayden House as a condition of developing other parcels of the site, one of which is the fully-leased 100 Mill office building, which houses companies like Amazon and Deloitte. A hotel is also in the works nearby on the property. The city of Tempe purchased Hayden House from Phelps for just $10, marking the first time the city will have any ownership of its most historic building.

Baxter-Ging said the newly-reopened home looks much like it did in 1924. A year was spent restoring the old adobe bricks alone. 

“The person who was restoring the adobe actually took one of the adobe blocks to have the dirt analyzed and he discovered what it was made of and found a place where the exact same composition of mud and clay was located right off beside Tempe Town Lake,” she said. “He was able to harvest what he needed from the area and created all the adobe brick that he needed to restore Hayden house by hand within the building. The house is gorgeous. It was even repainted the same colors it was back in the day.”

The restoration has earned the city several awards, including high honors from the Arizona Masonry Council. Tempe has also had success with the rehabilitation of other local adobe buildings, such as the Eisendrath House, the Sandra Day O'Connor House at Papago Park and others.

Hayden House was officially rededicated on April 10 during 2nd Sundays on Mill after several COVID-related delays. Self-guided tours were made available for the special occasion so residents and history buffs could take a look inside the restored home, see panels explaining its past and take in new art from Jacob Butler in a tribute to the Salt River and the area's Native American roots. 

“We've been wanting to celebrate the restoration of this house for a long time, but the time was never right,” said Baxter-Ging.”We didn't want to bring a lot of people into the building when there were possibilities of COVID, but with the transmission rate being as low as it is now, it seemed like it was time.”