Ah! Wilderness

THE SUBURBS Castles used to be few, and for the really rich. Today there are apt to be chateaux--modern style, of course--everywhere. Newest patch of stately subdivision is a rock-strewn desert 20 miles north of Phoenix, Ariz. Its name is Carefree, which is reasonably close to what anyone should be who builds a ranch-style house there for $100,000.

Six years ago, this barren acreage looked to the unknowing eye like plenty of sun-baked nothing. But ebullient Real Estate Promoter Thomas Darlington and Partner Kenyon T. Palmer, who bought the sand for as little as $100 an acre, saw nuggets in every boulder. Their original 800 acres, broken up into two-acre lots, have all been sold for as much as $10,000 a lot, and 1,600 more acres have been added. Fifty houses have already been built, and three or four more are started each week. The splendor of Carefree's citizenry encourages Promoter Darlington to think of his project as a Palm Beach with cactus. "Why," he chortles, "we have so many presidents and vice presidents out here, it looks like a roster of the N.A.M."

The Carefree citizens enjoy a top-hole golf course, shops, airport and an "International Restaurant" whose seven dining rooms are each decorated in a different geographical style but serve the same food. Last December saw the ceremonial opening of the $2.5 million Carefree Inn: rooms, $24 to $85 a night. Like Jamaica's Round Hill and Antigua's Mill Reef Club, the hotel rents private houses to visitors when their owners are not in residence.

All sites are carefully zoned and restricted to prevent what Darlington refers to as "creeping urbanization." Creeping cuteness has already engulfed the development, which boasts such street names as Languid Lane and Nonchalant Road. Ho Hum Drive separates into Ho Street and Hum Street. The bank is on Wampum Way. The main drag, naturally, is Easy Street.

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