Living Large: The Troubled History of Arizona's Largest House (Part 1 of 3)

In my research into Phoenix history, I have become fascinated by the largest private home in the State. This three-part series is a deep dive into the troubled story of Arizona's Largest House, known as the McCune Mansion or Hormel Mansion.

Part one is about Walker McCune, who began building the palatial house in 1960 and owned it until his death in 1971, though he never lived in the main residence. Part two covers Gordon Hall, the flashy businessman and white-collar criminal who owned the house from 1983 until 1986. Part three is about George Albert "Geordie" Hormel, an accomplished composer and musician and heir to a family fortune who owned the home from 1991 through the end of his life in 2006.

Each of the house’s three owners was substantially wealthier than an average person, and yet each of their lives was a roller coaster of misfortune and tragedy.

Largest House in Arizona

The largest completed house in Arizona is the 52,000 sq. ft. house located at 6112 N Paradise View Drive. Two other Arizona houses are under construction which are 60,000 and 100,000 square feet, but neither is completed at the time of this writing.

Arizona’s Largest Private Residence is located on top of Sugarloaf Mountain within the prestigious Paradise Valley suburb of Phoenix. The house has a fascinating backstory that begins with its fabulously wealthy and eccentric creator. In this article, we will explore the turbulent life of Walker McCune, the man who built the largest home in Arizona.

The Birth of a Family Fortune

The story of Walker McCune begins thousands of miles away in Scotland with the birth of Charles Lockhart on August 2, 1818. Lockhart and his family emigrated to the United States in June 1836. Arriving in Pittsburgh, the Lockhart family settled on a farmstead in Ohio, though Charles stayed in Pittsburgh.

Charles worked as a dry goods merchant for 19 years, later becoming a partner in the business with another clerk. In the 1850s, he began producing crude oil and built the first commercial scale oil refinery in the United States with his business partners.

In 1872 at the age of 54, Charles Lockhart teamed up with John D. Rockefeller to start what would eventually become Standard Oil Co. Lockhart served as President of Standard Oil from 1874 to 1892.

Charles Lockhart (1818-1905) was a co-founder of Standard Oil Company and amassed a vast fortune during his lifetime, estimated to be $30 to $50 million in 1903.

Standard Oil Co. used monopolistic business practices to crush their competition, and by 1890, the company controlled 88% of the refined oil in the United States. As a result, Rockefeller and Lockhart became fabulously wealthy – think of your typical Industrial Revolution tycoons. Standard Oil was the first company in history to reach a market capitalization of $1 billion dollars, but it was not to last.

In 1909, the U.S. Justice Department sued Standard Oil for maintaining a monopoly. In the summer of 1911, the case had advanced to the US Supreme Court, which ruled that Standard Oil was to be broken up into 34 smaller, independent companies. The company and its legacy are still studied today in business schools, numerous books, magazines and case studies.

Lockhart used his wealth to diversify into numerous other businesses including steamships, gold mining, lumber, and various other farming and manufacturing companies.

Lockhart retired in 1900 at the age of 82. An April 12, 1903 article in the San Francisco Examiner estimated his wealth at $30 to $50 million. He passed away on January 26, 1905 in Pittsburgh at age 87.

The Lockhart Mansion

Charles and his wife Jane Walker Lockhart lived in a palatial home in Pittsburgh. Located at 608 North Highland Avenue, the home boasted 16-foot ceilings and was known for its impressive art collection.

Charles Lockhart built this Gilded Age mansion in Pittsburgh with the vast fortune he made as a co-founder of Standard Oil Company. This photo shows the house in approximately 1899. His grandson Walker McCune cited the house and its high ceilings as an inspiration for the home he would later build in Arizona. Image by: The Frick Pittsburgh.

After Charles’ death in 1905, the home was passed to Lockhart’s descendants who demolished the property in 1952. The land was donated to the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, which was constructed in 1954.

Walker McCune

Walker McCune was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on May 19, 1902. His parents were Janet Lockhart (born 13 June 1867) and John Robison McCune III (born 10 October 1869). Walker was the middle of five children and his siblings included 3 brothers and 1 sister.

Walker visited Arizona in 1927 at the age of 25. Like many at that time, he came to Arizona for the dry desert air, which cleared up his sinus illness.

Walker McCune (shown at left) in his early 60s in this newspaper article from March 31, 1965.

He served in the air corps during the war during which he visited Africa, China and India. Upon his return, he had “an unfortunate year” at Princeton, he told the Arizona Republic in a 1958 interview. He transferred to Carnegie Tech where he studied electrical and mechanical engineering.

While a student, Walker went to work for Westinghouse Research. He took a job writing cookbooks for the electric stoves that Westinghouse was developing, and stayed on with the company until 1923 when his father passed away.

He served briefly at the Union National Bank of Pittsburgh, which was founded in 1851 by Walker’s grandfather, J.R. McCune. Walker admits that he never did like the banking business. In his 40s, he retired to Scottsdale, Arizona where he began giving to a number of charities as part of his McCune Foundation.

On October 11, 1957, Walker (age 55) married Carole Donne McCune (age 41). It was the second marriage for both of them. It seemed like things were going well for Walker, who was living off of the trust fund that was established by his grandfather, the co-founder of Standard Oil Co.

A Monumental House

Thanks to his grandfather, Walker was the recipient of a trust fund which paid him a handsome $167,000 per year for life, according to a 1968 article. A July 1965 financial statement reported his net worth as $16.2 million, equivalent to $142.9 million in 2021.

Now in his late 50s, Walker McCune embarked on a new project of building a custom home. This would be more than just a house – it would be his legacy project. Walker began building his trophy, his monument, his magnum opus. This new house would be a palace of truly extravagant proportions.

Walker began by purchasing 36 acres of land in the wealthy suburb of Paradise Valley for $10,000 per acre. Construction crews moved tons of dirt and built retaining walls 10 to 20 feet high to create Sugarloaf Mountain, an artificial hilltop upon which the home would sit.

For the design, McCune hired the design firm of Stone, Marracini and Patterson, based out of San Francisco. They were notable for having designed many prominent commercial buildings and hospitals across the U.S. The firm designed a fabulous house with 23,000 square feet under roof, split among three levels. The house would be approximately 2,000 square feet larger than the Wrigley Mansion, which was the city’s largest home for many years.

Construction of the massive home began August 10, 1960 and was documented in detail in the Arizona Republic newspaper, which ran multiple stories about the house and its amenities. Fred L. Musser was hired as general contractor for the project.

A December 1961 article states that the property will have a 3-bedroom guest house complete with kitchen and dining room, which is separated from the main house by an Olympic-size swimming pool. Estimates put the cost of construction at “more than $1 million.”

The main house has three floors, with the lower floor housing the servant’s quarters and machinery for air conditioning. The main floor has a kitchen measuring 18x36 feet. The original doors of the McCune Mansion in Pittsburgh are being rebuilt to be used in this home. They are of monel metal.

A photo of the house under construction from April 1961 shows the frame of the house made of reinforced concrete, with the exterior planned to be faced with native stone.

 

A May 1962 article talks about the house having an elevator as well as a grand staircase. Another article mentioned that the McCune Mansion would include an ice skating rink, commercial-sized laundry room, and a 10-car garage. At the time, the house boasted the single largest air conditioning unit in Arizona at 150 tons.

The construction of such a lavish property caused quite a stir, but that was just the beginning. Things were about to get a lot worse for Walker.

Walker’s Troubles Begin

Almost two years into construction of his prized hilltop mansion, Walker’s marriage to his wife Carole was in shambles. In May of 1962, Carole (age 36) sued Walker (age 60) for divorce, charging him with cruelty and habitual intemperance.

The suit asked for division of community property she valued at $50 million. She also asked for $15,000 monthly temporary alimony and $2,000 child support for their two adopted children. The couple had been married for 4.5 years.

Three days later, Carole was in Los Angeles where she was recovering from surgery after an intestinal obstruction. Walker told a reporter that there was nothing to the lawsuit, which he described as “the lawyer’s doing” and expected the suit to be withdrawn.

A May 25th article reports that the couple had reconciled with the assistance of Phoenix attorney Robert Kersting. He described himself as an intermediary and said that the couple is working out a complete reconciliation.

The house was still under construction according to a Feb. 11, 1963 article which offered a detailed look into the home’s amenities. The reporter describes a Roman-style bathroom in Carole’s suite made of Italian marble. A state-of-the-art security system was also mentioned as part of the home’s amenities. The cost of the home had now reached $2 million dollars.

The reporter was amused to find the home barely furnished, aside from a few antiques that were shipped from the old family home in Pittsburgh. A grandfather clock, some carved tables, an old-fashioned music box, and some valuable paintings were brought to Arizona, along with the restored wrought iron front entry doors, which weigh 1700 lbs. each.

Walker managed to stay out of the spotlight in 1964, but he was listed in the newspaper on April 10, 1965 along with 36 other drivers who were charged with driving while intoxicated, have pleaded guilty, or were found guilty.

However, trouble with his marriage and a drunk driving conviction were relatively minor compared to what would happen next to Walker and his extravagant house over the next several years.

From Bad to Worse

June 10, 1966 – Lawyers representing six contractors and building firms sue McCune for $200,000. It is revealed that the cost of the 23,000 square foot mansion is $5,453,000, or an unprecedented $245 per square foot to build.

July 1967 – New York jeweler Harry Winston Inc. wins a $351,655 judgment against Walker McCune for jewelry that he purchased in 1964. McCune paid $462,000 for a 24-carat emerald and diamond ring, a diamond bracelet, and a 28-carat marquise diamond ring valued at $250,000, all for his wife. The monthly payments for the jewelry totaled $39,750. McCune made his first four of 12 monthly payments, but then stopped paying them. The jeweler pursued legal action in 1967 and won a $351,655 judgment against Walker McCune in July 1967.

September 6, 1968 – Documents given as part of Walker McCune’s trial say that he was worth $16,249,881 as of July 1965. He owns four houses including a $566,118.24 house in Payson, Arizona. Approximately $7 million of his wealth was in a combination trust fund which is producing income of $167,000 per year for life.

February 1969 – The IRS places a $144,000 lien on all of McCune’s real and personal property. This amount was determined based on his 1967 tax return.

June 12, 1969 – Walker’s $5.8 million home is scheduled to be sold at a sheriff’s auction on June 26th to satisfy a $116,000 court judgment to Phoenix attorney Robert Kersting. Kersting was a friend of McCune’s who helped him reconcile his divorce with Carole back in 1962.

By 1968, the relationship between McCune and Kersting had soured to the point where Kersting sued him for fees he was owed for legal and financial advice he provided to Walker. McCune was ordered to pay the money by April 14. A $500,000 house near Payson owned by McCune’s trust is also scheduled to be sold at a sheriff’s auction in Gila County on June 23rd.

June 22, 1969 – Court Won’t Postpone McCune Property Sale – Superior Court has denied moves to postpone the scheduled sheriff’s sale of McCune’s property near Payson and his $5 million Paradise Valley House. All of McCune’s property is in a trust fund managed by Los Angeles attorney Louis Sakin.

November 20, 1969 – McCune filed a complaint in Arizona Supreme Court that he was denied a court ruling on his right to a counterclaim against Seitz Construction Co, who filed a lien foreclosure suit on the McCune house.

November 27, 1969 – Walker McCune, age 67, was arrested at the family residence in Rancho Santa Fe, California (outside of Del Mar, CA) on charges of “child molest,” a felony. He was released on a $2,500 bond and scheduled to appear in court in Oceanside on December 5th.

December 4, 1969 – The day before his court appearance, McCune files for divorce from Carole, alleging cruel treatment. He also seeks custody of their four adopted children, contending that Carole is an unfit mother. A newspaper article estimates McCune’s net worth at $10 to $16 million.

December 6, 1969 – Carole declines to sign a complaint in San Diego charging her husband with child molesting. Mrs. McCune said it would be in the “best interest of the children at this time if she declined to continue with prosecution.”

March 27, 1970 – Walker’s various legal tactics have delayed the sale of his Paradise Valley home for more than a year. However, Walker’s luck has finally run out. Arizona Supreme Court judge Irwin Cantor upholds a ruling that the house can be sold at auction in order to satisfy the judgment to Mr. Kersting.

March 28, 1970 – Maricopa County Treasurer’s Office shows that property taxes totaling $152,391.45 for 1966-69 have never been paid on the mansion. McCune also owes $116,000 to Phoenix attorney Robert Kersting for legal and financial advice he gave to McCune.

June 11, 1970 – McCune and his lawyers once again managed to dodge the Arizona mansion from hitting the auction block. McCune’s lawyers and Kersting’s lawyers agreed to a settlement of $100,000 to be payable over 30 months.

McCune’s lawyers also announced the settlement of a $120,000 suit sought by Herbert Miller, who was McCune’s business adviser in 1965. Settlement was for $70,000 to be paid over a period of 12 months.

June 18, 1970 – Arizona state attorney general’s office ordered the Maricopa County sheriff’s office to go ahead with the auction sale of the home. The state obtained a judgment of $55,117.55 against McCune for state income taxes for 1966, 1967 and 1968, plus an additional $5,000 in interest on the back taxes. It is reported that no one has ever lived in the mansion, which took five years to complete.

November 8, 1970 – the McCune Mansion will host a private cocktail party, hosted by Phoenix’s Charter Government Committee, the citizen’s group which has nominated the successful mayoral candidate in every election since 1949. Proceeds from the party will go to Charter Government Committee’s campaign expense fund.

Walker’s Demise

April 13, 1971 – Walker McCune dies unexpectedly at age 68. Though he did leave a will, his death kicks off a firestorm of legal activity over his estate.

Despite all of the settlements and judgments against him, Walker McCune was still worth approximately $7 million when he died. He left just $100.00 to his ex-wife Carole in his will. They had a complicated relationship, and it is amazing that a person of such means could hold such a grudge against his ex-wife.

Carole’s Story

Carole D. McCune (nee Donne) was born in Denmark on March 20, 1916. She had a role in the 1949 movie “Amazon Quest” as Anna Narden. She married Walker McCune in 1957 and they had a turbulent marriage that was on the rocks in 1962 before ending in divorce in 1969.

Before her marriage to Walker McCune, Carole Donne starred in the 1949 film "Amazon Quest."

Carole’s obituary describes her as a poet and artist, former movie actress, writer, minister, and private tutor in Europe. She was a member of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and Writers Digest School. Interestingly, her obituary makes no mention of the 12 years she was married to Walker McCune.

Carole never lived in the fabulous mansion in Arizona. After separating from Walker in 1969, she spent 50 years of her life in San Diego County in California, where she lived in a “substantial home on 18 acres” in Rancho Santa Fe.

Carole’s Lifestyle

A 1966 article describes Carole and her daughter Michele having taken a cruise from New York to Daytona Beach, Florida. Carole owned a number of race horses including “Phanson,” “Lady Gourmet,” and “Green Banner,” the latter of which won the “Irish Two Thousand Guinea Classic” and became a stud at the McCune ranch in California.

The article contains an amusing statement “She [Mrs. McCune] emphasizes, too, that the horses are hers – not her husband’s – who has no interest whatever in thoroughbred racing.”

Carole McCune was the target of a February 1965 conspiracy robbery by five New York mafiosos. An inmate in state prison testified that the five men were planning to rob an armored car and to steal about $500,000 worth of jewelry from Carole, who often stayed in the penthouse suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles.

The chief security officer of the hotel, Louis Sorgi, was an inside man who befriended Mrs. McCune and helped plan the heists, according to the prosecutor for the case. The robberies never materialized, and the parties involved were convicted in Buffalo Federal Court in November 1967.

Carole owned race horses, a racing yacht, and according to a 1966 article, at one time had a stable of racing dogs. It is no stretch to say that she enjoyed the finer things in life.

A 1973 newspaper article about Cold War-era bomb shelters describes one such shelter at Carole’s home. It describes a three-bedroom shelter underneath her house that cost $15,000 and was more luxurious than many homes.

Carole’s Legal Troubles

In 1966, Carole and Walker had hired Los Angeles attorney Louis A. Sackin to help them manage their estate. He created a trust into which the couple was supposed to place all of their real and personal holdings. However, both Carole and Walker declined to follow through on this. Carole owned two Corporations in California and 65 acres of land in Apache Junction, Arizona which she planned to develop into a mobile home park. Walker owned a ranch near Payson, Arizona that he did not place into the trust.

After the couple separated in 1969, Sackin took the title to all of their properties that were in the trust. Carole filed suit against Walker and Sackin, alleging a violation of the trust agreement. Before everything could be settled, Walker died in April 1971 at the age of 68. He specifically bequested that Carole was to receive $100.00 in his will, with $1.5 million going to charitable donations to a hospital.

In May 1971, Carole hired Los Angeles law firm Irwin, Gluecksman and Lasker to represent her in the suit against Sackin and her former husband. During the fall and winter months, Gluecksmann and another attorney, Paul Bonn, contested the validity of Walker’s will in an Arizona court.

After intense negotiation, the hospital charities agreed in late 1971 to withdraw as proponents to McCune’s estate. Carole received approximately $411,000 and the children collectively received double that amount. Before the matter could be finalized, Carole made herself incommunicado in December 1971 and January 1972. One of the attorneys, Beardsley, visited Carole in Rancho Santa Fe and found the house to be in “deplorable conditions and Carole claiming to be without funds.”

Beardsley consulted with the other lawyers including Gluecksman and they petitioned the court to have her put into a conservatorship of both her person and her estate. This was the beginning of six years of hell for Carole that would nearly ruin her.

Carole’s Conservatorship

On February 18, 1972, Carole (age 55) was placed into a Conservatorship on the premise that it was “necessary for the preservation and protection of the estates of Carole McCune and her minor children.” This was in fact a scheme devised by various attorneys to deprive Carole of control over her assets and to have her assets be transferred to the attorneys as fees.

Attorney Joseph Gluecksman’s friend Emmett Morava was appointed temporary conservator, and later permanent conservator, of Mrs. McCune’s estate. Gluecksman himself was special council to the conservator.

During the 6 years that Carole’s estate was controlled by attorneys from 1972 to 1978, the value of her estate diminished from approximately $4 million dollars in 1973 to $1 million dollars by 1980. $2 million of this went to the attorneys for legal fees, costs, and administration fees for their activities.

As it turns out, California Judge Hugo Fisher was meeting ex parte with attorney Gluecksman, outside of the courtroom, discussing the case at restaurants attended by both men and their wives, or at Gluecksman’s home in Los Angeles.

Judge Fisher made several illegal actions that included: not ordering an inventory of the estate, filing petitions without proper notice and without findings required by law, without a showing of lawful cause.

Furthermore, the Judge ordered Carole to vacate her residence. He settled other pending lawsuits she had without her consent, including with another attorney, Louis Sacklin, who was allegedly a malpracticing attorney. He continued to order payments of legal fees, including “additional compensation” to Gluecksmann of $190,000

Carole fought like hell, making continuous and repeated objections to the judge over the course of six years. She hired lawyers, and then more lawyers, to try and untangle the massive legal mess that had consumed all facets of her life.

She succeeded in terminating the conservatorship on November 9, 1978, and won control of Walker’s Pennsylvania trusts on January 14, 1979. Carole received $2.4 million dollars, of which two-thirds was distributed to the children and one-third to her.

Carole passed away October 6, 1996 in Encinitas at the age of 80. Her obituary states that “She had no survivors.” I find it curious that the obituary made no mention of her four adopted children.

Judge Fisher Censured

Judge Hugo M. Fisher, a Superior Court judge in California, was charged in September 1980 with 30 instances of misconduct over his involvement with the Conservatorship of the Estate of Carole McCune. The judge denied any wrongdoing in the management of Carole McCune’s estate in a line-by-line objection that totaled 16 pages.

After an evidentiary hearing and oral argument, the Commission on Judicial Performance dismissed all except one of the charges, which it presented to the Supreme Court.

Photo of Judge Hugo Fisher in 1982. Photo by: Vince Campagnone for the Los Angeles Times

The Supreme Court publicly censured Judge Fisher in 1982, stating that he had engaged in a pattern of ex parte contacts with lawyers for only one side in the complex conservatorship case which was pending before him for several years. They found that he had recurrently failed to include the opposing side in his contacts, orally and in writing. This was in violation of the California Code of Judicial Conduct.

This ruling was the end of Judge Fisher’s career, and he retired from the bench not long afterwards in 1983 at age 62. In retirement, Fisher struggled with alcohol addiction and was twice convicted of drunk driving. Judge Fisher died in San Diego on July 8, 2015 at age 94.

The Empty House

With Walker deceased in 1971 and his ex-wife out in California, work on the unfinished house had come to a stop. The home was sold at auction by the court in 1970. I will discuss the next chapter of the home’s troubled history in part two.