John Loring grew up in Cave Creek. It was his golden childhood years, he says, which prepared him for his current position as design director for prestigious Tiffany & Co.
It is, in itself, an astounding piece of American design. That robin’s-egg-blue box says Tiffany the minute you see it. Flower-filled versions of this classic container will double as table centerpieces at the Phoenix Art Museum’s Tiffany Tea in honor of John Loring. Guests will sip champagne and boutique teas, nibble on elegant sandwiches and delicious desserts, and get to know Loring, a true Arizona original.
Loring was raised on a ranch right here in the Valley. How did an Arizona boy from the then-tiny town of Cave Creek become design director for this famed American company? It’s not so surprising, according to Loring. “Just look around in Cave Creek, and you’ve got your explanation,” he says. “Your eye is trained on beautiful and extraordinary things all the time.” In fact, Loring, only the third design director Tiffany has employed in the 20th century, and his predecessor, Van Day Truex, both were raised on Western ranches. When he hired him, Truex told Loring they had the same advantage: “We were teethed on beauty.”
According to Loring, the strength of American design depends a great deal on the American landscape. In its 300-year run, European design became hampered by endless repetition and a complicated vocabulary of graphic conventions. It was, says Loring, simple overexposure. America, on the other hand, was a second Garden of Eden. Loring believes anyone brought up in Arizona has an aesthetic edge.
In 1945 when his parents began work on their ranch, “you could buy the whole state of Arizona for 14 dollars and 75 cents,” says Loring. “You had your choice of anything, so you picked the most beautiful square mile you could find.” Located on the back side of Black Mountain, the family ranch is now a golf resort and restaurant called Rancho Manana. “I can go in my bedroom and buy golf shoes,” Loring laughs. “But you see, the ranch is extraordinary because they could have bulldozed the whole place.” Instead, Ron Allred, well known for having developed the Telluride resort, turned his attention to the Arizona desert and chose to lovingly restore the property. Spend a day on the links, and you may notice traces of Loring’s childhood. On one hole, three boards still hang in a mesquite tree, remnants of a long-ago tree house.
Phoenix was a very different, much smaller town in those days, and Cave Creek barely existed. “There weren’t any distractions,” recalls Loring. “We had to invent our own entertainment.” While it may be difficult to imagine today, Loring remembers spending days at Cave Creek’s only gas station just waiting for a car to pass by. His early education took place in the town’s one-room schoolhouse. He hiked the Boulders on the lookout for mountain lions and explored among the date palms planted by Arizona’s legendary camel driver Hadji Ali (also known as Hi Jolly). His German Shepherd dog bred with a coyote in the desert to produce a loyal, if mostly wild, pet that would snarl at anyone but Loring. Snakes and scorpions (he was stung twice) simply added interest to a young boy’s life.
The Valley, however, was not without culture and civilization. Loring remembers seeing the Westward Ho for the first time as a young child: “It was an absolutely beautiful hotel, which appeared to my five-year-old eyes as a place of unparalleled glamour and excitement.” The Sombrero Playhouse attracted top-notch Hollywood talent, Zsa Zsa Gabor modeled at the Arizona Biltmore, and Elizabeth Arden brought the rich and famous to the desert for early spa treatments. Back at the ranch, Frank Lloyd Wright would stop in occasionally. Even in those days of higher-quality craftsmanship, Wright was not very charitable about what people built in the desert. “It’s bad enough that you built it, but it’s unspeakable to have painted it white so that people have to look at it,” Wright once said about a neighbor’s house.
A painter and printmaker before working for Tiffany & Co., one of Loring’s major projects was an enormous mural that hung in the customs house of the World Trade Center and was destroyed on September 11. He is unconcerned about the loss of the work–“it wasn’t a person”–but was happy to be able to donate his records on the creation of the mural to the New York Historical Society. His extensive charitable work includes serving on the board of directors of Save Venice and on the acquisitions committee of the Museum of Modern Art. And Loring hasn’t forgotten his Arizona roots. He has raised money for and donated many family items to the Cave Creek Museum.
The Tiffany Tea, part of the fifth annual Phoenix Antiques and Art Show, takes place on Saturday, March 2 at 2pm in the museum’s pavilion. An hour beforehand, Loring will discuss his latest book, Magnificent Tiffany Silver, in Whiteman Hall. This definitive treatise details the firm’s history of exquisite silver pieces, from the Super Bowl trophy to the renowned 1,250-piece Mackay table service.
Sage Words 
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