William Morgan: An Arizona developer’s dream of London Bridge in the desert
On Christmas Eve in the late 1970s, Jennie wrote a postcard to her friend Bertha Fraga back home, in New Bedford, Mass. There’s a bit of Schadenfreude on Jennie’s part: Bertha’s address is a triple decker in a run-down area just a block from Interstate Route 195.
As opposed to gray skies and snow flurries in the old whaling port, it is “Just beautiful out here it’s 78 today. I’m walking in sleeveless blouses. Both my cousins have beautiful homes.”
Jennie probably visited the Grand Canyon while on her trip, but her postmark puts her at Arizona’s second-most-popular tourist spot, London Bridge.
The Lake Havasu City bridge was purchased a decade before by a local businessman for $2.5 million, spending another $7 million to get the famous l830s landmark shipped from the Thames to the lake and reconstructed. (The Lord Mayor of London traveled to lay the cornerstone.)
London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, Ariz.
While undoubtedly an urban myth, there was some speculation that the Arizona developer believed that he was purchasing the much larger and far more ornate Tower Bridge. As it was, only the external granite blocks of London Bridge were taken to the Arizona site, next to the Colorado River, where they were attached to a new steel and concrete frame.
English Village at Lake Havasu City.
In trying to increase the visitor appeal of his planned city, the developer constructed “an authentically designed English village” to make the London Bridge “feel more at home.” Looking like a movie set from an old Western, the village boasted an “English fish and chips snack bar and a real British Pub Restaurant.”
Not surprisingly, the village expanded, as, promoters say, “local entrepreneurs and dreamers saw its potential and reimagined the space as a hub of family fun and entertainment.” Hit this link.
The Hog in Armor pub is now a microbrewery. As official Lake Havasu PR asserts, “the English Village remains a beloved destination for making memories … and feeling the magic of reinvention done right.”
Jennie may have been dazzled by the desert sun and the English Village’s cute shops, but score points to Bertha for living in an architecturally rich town with real, unmanufactured history.
William Morgan is a Providence-based architectural critic and historian and photographer. He has been contributing stories on New England’s quirky heritage to New England Diary for years. His book The Almighty Wall is about architect Henry Vaughan, who designed the original building of the Whaling Museum in New Bedford.