Bill Tonnesen’s cool home is unique
Landscape architect Bill Tonnesen’s property stands out for being elegant, original and hair-raising.
First impressions
To the right, 12 young trees, in rows of four, are caged in metal boxes. To the left is a mound of dirt reminiscent of a giant ant hill, with the disturbing figure of a fully veiled person popping out from a hole in its center.
Straight ahead are a woman’s legs, bound together and hanging from a wall, as well as the armless bust of a naked female.
A physically imposing 6-foot-6 man with a Marilyn Manson hairstyle answered the door. With his hand, he kindly but silently motioned to come inside.
Tonnesen headed toward the other end of his lot, through a colonnade adorned with horse skulls, bowls of chicken feet, and other random objects glued onto panels, including the naked body of a woman, lying supine, legs apart, with a sheet over her face.
At the end of the colonnade corridor is
his studio. Through the glass door of the studio, in full view of the foyer, hangs the statue of a man wearing a gas mask, one of his hands missing, his body floating in mid-air.
An extraordinary home for an unordinary man
The studio is dark, modern and beautiful, with a ground level view of the swimming pool. Inside, there are 5 foot piles of art books, statues of people, their bodies immortalized with the use of casts, including one of the artist himself, one of former Tempe Mayor’s son Eli Hallman, one of a life-sized cow, and, taking center stage, a partially nude woman, sitting like a roman goddess.
Tonnesen, a landscape architect and contemporary artist, owns a design and construction firm, and remodels residential and commercial properties.
The finished product is not suitable for the average tenant.
Perhaps Tonnesen is most known for the nude statue of a 300-pound woman, seated on the wall of one of his properties on Broadway and Rural, with a street light over her head. Or just as well for the sculpture of a woman pouring black paint over her face at Scottsdale Civic Center’s hip restaurant, AZ/88.
Tonnesen’s own home, located in Tempe’s University Park neighborhood, is an appealing combination of his eccentric artistic talent and distinctive landscaping. The solid block masonry building is characterized by clean lines and juxtaposes beautifully with the minimalistic yard.
It is extremely difficult to keep a conversation focused on Tonnesen’s home. Every 45 seconds on average, he pauses the recording to delve into a different topic altogether, including his newest idea of creating a reality TV show.
When asked what year he bought the house, Tonnesen seems annoyed with such a trivial question.
“I don’t know, who knows?” He asks rhetorically. “Forever ago.”
He purchased his University Park lot more than 30 years ago, before he met and married his Spanish-born wife, Pilar. Over the years he also acquired the lots on either side of his home, taking much of their back yards to extend his own, and renting out the two homes.
“I had the house in the middle,” Tonnesen explains. “And these properties are like pencils, because they’re on the railroad tracks, they measure only 57 feet wide, but they’re 300 feet long. So they’re very long and narrow.”
The extra space was put to good use. The property boasts a gorgeous swimming pool, a spacious lawn, a basketball court, and a very large studio. In the near future, Tonnesen plans to tear down his home and one of the adjacent rentals, and to blend them into a single, larger home for his family.
Creative influences
Tonnesen has no use for small talk, so the topic of his own architectural influences visibly bores him.
“Like many people, the first person that came to my architectural awareness, was Frank Lloyd Wright, of course, like everybody ... I’m probably in the majority saying that,” Tonnesen said. “And here locally, there’s people that I look up to and learn from. Eddie Jones certainly is one of them. And Andy Byrnes is a huge factor .. .. ”
Many of Tonnesen’s early art pieces comprised of large square panels of minimalist design and various textures. From those, he started making the body cast figures from live models. But his approach to art has always been provocative and controversial.
“So people ask, ‘Are you an artist?’ And my answer would be, ‘I suppose that because we make a bunch of useless stuff, which in a way is what art is, it would be easy to say that I’m an artist.’ But it’s such an easy thing to declare. You don’t have to get a degree … you can just say, ‘Oh yeah, I’m an artist...’”
Tonnesen’s next project? Babies. He intends to place them in front of some apartments down the street.