Travel Arizona #1 - Abandoned Houses Hawley Lake Arizona

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I found this article in the New York Times from 1984. They say they were devastated financially by allowing people to live by the lake for as little as $40 a year and as much as $130 dollars a year. They say they weren't chasing away 'White people" and that it was an economic reason, not to renew the lease. Well it has been 17 years since the last house was abandoned and nothing has been done. All we have are deteriorating properties.

Here is the article in it's entirety -

One by one, the summer cabins and year-round homes of Non-Indians snuggled amid the aspens, firs, pines and spruces on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation are disappearing.

Two homes on the 1.6-million-acre reservation were hauled out this month by professional house movers. More are expected to follow as residents' 25- year leases, some costing as little as $40 a year, start to expire. The White Mountain Apache Tribe, citing ''staggering'' losses, has refused to renew the leases, and the homeowners have no legal recourse.

There are 410 home sites altogether, and 65 leases covering 63 homes expire this year. Forty-four more will be up in 1985 and 290 in 1988. The last will come due in the year 2001.

Non-Indians have lived around Hawley Lake, a manmade lake that is stocked with trout, since June 1959, when the Apaches issued the first leases. Both residents and the tribal chairman, Ronnie Lupe, describe the resort as a ''paradise.'' Homes Were Embellished

''It compares with any resort in the country, in the world,'' Mr. Lupe said.

Several people initially put up humble cabins and gradually converted them into luxurious structures, some in the $150,000-to-$200,000 range. Homeowners said they had invested their time and money at Hawley Lake because they had oral or written assurances that the tribe would renew the leases.
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''The crux of the whole thing is that at the time we signed the lease, we were told that it would be renewed at the end of the 25 years, nothing to worry about,'' said Howard Rose, 73 years old, president of the Hawley Lake Homeowners Association, one of a handful of year-round residents. ''We all feel that we're getting a real raw deal out of it.''

But Ellsworth Hanson, who has several years remaining on his lease, said he was grateful to Mr. Lupe ''for the privilege of living up here - the garden spot of the world.''

''Even if I have to move off I'm thankful for the years I've had up here,'' hew said.

Mr. Lupe said the fixed-rate leases, which initially ranged from $40 to $130 a year, did not ''say anything about renewal.'' Some Leases Reassigned

Losses to the White Mountain Apaches have been ''staggering,'' he said. Total lease fees initially averaged $32,000 to $50,000 a year. Only recently, with reassignment of some leases, have they produced a higher amount, about $87,000.

A tribal attorney, Robert C. Brauchli, estimated the investment loss to the tribe as ''probably in the millions of dollars,'' considering that privately owned lakeside lots in nearby Pinetop sell for $50,000 to $60,000.

For eight years the tribe offered to renew the residents' leases. It revoked the offer in 1977, saying the leases were not in the tribe's best interests, ''both culturally and financially.'' Mr. Rose said a former president of the homeowners' association never informed the members of this offer. Mr. Lupe says, however, that the offer was rejected by the association. ''They've got no beef coming,'' Mr. Lupe said. ''They lived up there for nothing for 25 years. To me, that's a lifetime. It's not the White Mountain Apache Tribe chasing off a bunch of white people. This is not the case. It's just the economics of a lousy arrangement for 25 years that have really killed my tribe.'' Homesteader's Offer Rejected

The homeowners' association last year proposed raising the average annual rental per lot to $702, for a total of $365,000, if the tribe would renew the leases. The tribe declined.

As for the future of the resort, Mr. Lupe said the options included letting the land revert to its natural state for the benefit of both Indians and tourists, or attempting a full-fledged resort development.

''But just to have that land and walk in the quiet pine trees with nobody around is a priceless million-dollar feeling to an Apache,'' he said.

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