Our first visit to Kayenta was on Sunday, May 8, 2005. We drove to the area as part of a “let’s scope out possible retirement locations” trip to Utah and Arizona. Our criteria included warm, scenic and sunny places with reasonable life-support systems (stores, hospitals, etc.). We planned our itinerary to take in St. George, Sedona and Prescott, with southern Utah being the first on the list.
We arrived at our lodgings at the Green Gate Village Inn on Tabernacle St. around 2:30pm. The contrast between Los Angeles and St. George on a Sunday afternoon could not have been greater! It felt like an episode of The Twilight Zone where all the people had disappeared.
After we’d checked in, we decided to take a drive around the neighborhood to see what the different areas were like. Our house in Torrance had a spectacular view of the Santa Monica Bay and we were looking for somewhere which might have a view as stimulating as our home in California, although obviously not of the Pacific.
We drove up to Donlee Dr. which has a good view overlooking the city. However, the properties did not really appeal to us. So we went back down to Bluff and headed north. At Snow Canyon Parkway we turned left and headed out towards the various developments on this side of St. George.
As we passed Kachina Springs, The Cliffs and Entrada, we realized that this area was a lot more promising. We drove into a couple of the areas to take a look but the homes seemed to be a little close together.
Continuing on to Ivins we eventually came to Taviawk Dr. and the entrance to Kayenta.
Taviawk Drive in August 2006
Once we had discovered our dream location, we then had a choice of whether to buy a used-house or to find a lot and build our own home to our own specifications.
Initially, we'd thought we would buy a house, but we could see the housing bubble building. We reckoned that if it burst we would lose less money on a lot than on a house and so we opted to buy a lot and build later when we were nearer retirement.
After a couple of false starts we eventually found a great lot ("there are no bad lots in Kayenta") and bought it in August 2005.
This is how our lot looked before we started the building process.
"There are no bad lots in Kayenta"
