Tempe Historic Property Survey

Although Mary E. Empey received a homestead patent to this property in 1925, the style of the house suggests an earlier date of construction, probably around 1905. Mary Empey was well-known in Tempe as an educator, having worked at Arizona State Teachers College (now ASU) from 1903 to 1939. Her major work was as a critic in the Primary Department's Training School. Empey sold the property to Sadie Wilcox Coleman in 1931. Coleman was also an educator, teaching in Phoenix schools for 25 years. Most of her career was spent as a member of the commercial faculty of Phoenix Union High School. She also published many commercial manuals and workbooks, as well as professional articles. The property remained in the Coleman family until 1953.

This single-story rectangular house was sheathed in horizontal clapboard siding and featured a bellcast hipped roof. Eaves were boxed. A hipped roof dormer with a horizontal louvered ventilator was placed in the front roof plane. The full length front porch had been enclosed on the west end with planking. The porch was detailed with a clapboard frieze. Square wooden posts supported the porch roof, and rested directly on the tongue and groove floor of the porch. The two steps to the porch were also wood. The main entry was a single door, flanked on each side by a rectangular, double-hung window. Two rectangular and double-hung windows broke the east and west facades. A shed-roofed porch at the rear of the house had been enclosed with planking. In the 1980s, the house was situated in the middle of an orchard and was surrounded by trees and vegetation. The house was demolished in the 1980s.

Go to Tempe Historic Property Survey