Organ Pipe

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument is in Southern Arizona in the Sonoran Desert. The Park is along the Mexico-United States border and is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. It is said that  the park is the only place in the United States where the senita and organ pipe cactus grow wild,  and the rest of the park is a niche ecosystem that holds a wide variety of planets and animals local to the Yuma section of the Sonoran. 

Dos Lomitas Ranch House (also called Blankenship Ranch House) is a 1920 adobe building that is representative of Sonoran vernacular architecture. It is a single story adobe building with exposed beams, saguaro rib latillas, and mud plaster walls. There was once a mesquite post and saguaro rib ramada surrounding the house. The Park Service notes that:

The ranch was the first of the fifteen ranches and line camps in the Gray family cattle business which developed the ranching potential of the desert country north of the border and dominated the lands of Organ Pipe National Monument for nearly 60 years.

The main ranch house is regarded as a rare example of the earlier "Sonoran traditional ranch style," characterized by thick adobe walls, whether exposed or stuccoed, beamed ceiling, flat roof and floor of packed earth, often laid out in an L-form.

Cornerstones is working on several projects in the Monument, including the preservation of the ranch house. The work outlined and partially completed in early 2022 was substantial. We stabilized adobe walls using unamended, traditional materials, corrected drainage surrounding structure, repaired existing roof and parapet with modern materials, and replastered some of the interior. Work will continue through the coming years.