[Source: Ari Cohn, Tribune] -- The sun is setting on Brusally Ranch, a centerpiece of Scottsdale’s horse history. Some, including a member of the family that started it, are upset the ranch has been sold off to developers who plan to build houses on the land. Others, like neighbor Larry Heath, want to make sure it’s preserved. “To have this be the end of its lifespan seems to be a bit of a tragedy to me,” Heath said. Many Arabian horses can trace their lineage back to those bred at Brusally Ranch by Ed Tweed, the founder and first president of the state’s Arabian Horse Association. Only six acres of the original 160-acre ranch remain. Tweed’s daughter donated the family home, on 84th Street north of Cholla Street, to the Mayo Clinic in the mid-1990s. Since 1999, recipients of organ transplants at the clinic have spent time recuperating there. The 6,000-square-foot Spanish colonial-style ranch home is known as the Arizona Transplant House. Shelley Trevor, Tweed’s granddaughter, said she is not happy about the sale. “My mother had given it to the Mayo Clinic to be used for charitable means,” she said. “But money always wins, I guess.” The house is no longer large enough to accommodate the number of patients seeking to stay there, said Tom Davie, executive director. The nonprofit’s current facility houses patients from the Mayo Clinic who are recuperating from kidney, liver, heart, pancreas or bone marrow transplants. The transplant house, in return, asks $25 a night for room and board, if the patient can afford it. “We provide lodging for patients and their caregivers, both pre- and post-transplant,” Davie said. “We’ve served several thousand patients in those years.” The facility, however, only has seven rooms. So the decision was made to move to a new location to be built at the Mayo Clinic’s Phoenix campus at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard.
[Note: To read the full article, click here. Photo: Barn at Brusally Ranch.]
