Owner: Tower above Monti’s only answer

The owner of Monti’s La Casa Vieja says the only way to save the historic adobe building is to build a 300-foot glass and steel building above it.

View a slideshow of the building.

Video: See a video of the history of Monti’s La Casa Vieja in Tempe

Graphic: See the location and layout of the building

The building — the oldest in the Valley — would remain largely untouched. But concrete columns would sit in front of it to support the mass of what’s above.

Michael Monti’s proposal has generated support, opposition — and a passionate debate over just what is historic and how to ensure future generations can experience what is often considered the Valley’s most important historic structure.

Historical preservation advocates are largely siding against Monti’s plan, saying the new structure would swallow the low-slung building constructed in 1873.

“It somewhat hides it,” said Bob Gasser, chairman of the city’s Historic Preservation Commission.

The plan isn’t an honest attempt to save the home built in 1871 by Tempe founder Charles Trumbull Hayden, said Ann Patterson, a commission member. She blasted it as “window dressing.”

Though Monti said his plan will leave the inside untouched, changing the building’s setting could get the adobe structure kicked off state and national historic registries, said Jim Garrison, the state’s historic preservation officer.

The city’s historic commission opposes the high-rise above the historic building, insisting that Monti’s should stand out and the new high-rise should serve as a backdrop.

So far, though. Monti has scoffed at the idea of keeping the existing building so visible.

“Nobody ever said, ‘I had a great time leaning up against your stucco wall,’ ” Monti said.

The real historic value of the building is its rooms, he said. Hayden built it room by room, and generations of people experienced the building by the flow of the rooms.

Monti wants the high-rise to incorporate his building so the entire project will feel like one entity. Separating his restaurant could make it harder to draw patrons and force him to sell to somebody who might not care as much about the building’s history, he said.

The restaurant once drew patrons from across the Valley, and two-hour waits were common even after numerous expansions brought seating capacity to 725. But the restaurant industry has changed vastly since Monti’s father, Leonard, expanded the restaurant.

Too many customers stopped coming as downtown boomed and became more congested. Monti wants to make the place more upscale and to do a better job highlighting its historic features. But Monti said he needs money for that and to fix some of the “haphazard” things his father did, including some changes that Monti said were literally accomplished based on sketches on a cocktail napkin.

Monti said he’s heard criticism that his father wouldn’t have sold. But during a recent tour of the restaurant, he pulled a 9-inch-thick file labeled “Monti’s sale attempts.” The file shows his father constantly entertained offers until his death in 1994.

The high-rise boom downtown is now making the property more valuable, just as congestion is chasing away more customers.

“It’s sort of a great opportunity presented at a great time of crisis,” Monti said.

Monti does have the support of the Hayden family, including 50-year-old Carl Hayden. Like Monti, he said the inside is the most important part of the building.

“My great-grandfather was a businessman,” Hayden said. “I think he’d love to see this happen.”

Still, the historic commission has asked Monti to develop two different plans. Some members want the new building pushed back at least 20 feet along Mill Avenue and Rio Salado Parkway. That would keep anything from hanging over the L-shaped portion built of adobe in various phases in the 1800s. And pillars would move inside so nothing blocked the building.

Others wanted to go farther so nothing would hang over the 11,000 square feet of building Monti plans to keep. The commission will review those options Nov. 1.

Either alternative could threaten the adobe portion, said Monti and developer Tony Wall, president of 3W Companies. The exterior pillars are about 3 feet in diameter, they said, but moving them inside requires a different structural system and pillars 10 to 12 feet in diameter.

That could destroy the feeling of the interior, Monti said, or force so much ground disturbance that the adobe structure would turn to rubble. He’s still trying to make the case his plan is the best — if not the only — way to preserve the site’s history.

“We have to evolve,” Monti said. ‘What we’re trying to do is save this building for another generation. Everything we’re doing is consistent with what’s happened historically.”