Woman creates magazine to highlight lifestyle

Most magazine offices may have frequent phone calls and the constant clickety-clack of computer keyboards. But for the founder and editor of a new Scottsdale magazine, the only sound other than peaceful silence around the office is her 7-month-old baby screaming for attention.

Scottsdale native Alexandra Duemer recently started the magazine, McCormick Ranch Lifestyle, from her home within the roughly 3,000-acre master-planned community.

The inaugural issue, set to print and distribute in March, will be a 24-page full-color publication sent quarterly to each of the 5,500 homes within McCormick Ranch. The content will feature articles about residents, business and realty trends, as well photographs of the area. There also will be a recipe section, a pet section and a calendar of local events.

And Duemer does it all. She writes the content. She takes the photos. She does the ad sales. She’s the founder and editor. And if she had a printing press in the backyard, she’d probably add “circulation director” to her job tasks.

Her only staff includes a designer in Florida and a printer in Wisconsin.

The idea to start the magazine coincided with the 30-year-old’s most recent employer, Action Performance of Tempe, getting bought out.

“They moved the headquarters to Charlotte and I was out of a job — at eight months pregnant,” Duemer said.

One day back in August, Duemer’s mother-in-law happened to bring a copy of Scottsdale Ranch Magazine — another publication for a Scottsdale master-planned community — to Duemer’s place. It caught her eye.

“I thought, ‘You know, this is a great idea. Why hasn’t anybody done it for McCormick Ranch?’” Duemer said.

Given the size of the community, she said it deserved to have its own magazine. She also was impressed with the marketing and advertising opportunities. According to the McCormick Ranch Property Owners’ Association, of the 3,116 acres that make up McCormick Ranch, about 57 percent is residential and 17 percent is commercial.

Though Duemer said the idea of reaching out to all of the businesses within the area seemed like a daunting task at first — Duemer describes herself as “petite and meek” — it was something she said she quickly had to learn.

“I think my approach is refreshing to people,” she said.

Duemer graduated from Methodist College in Fayetteville, N.C., in May 1998 with a degree in English, but knew she wanted to return to her hometown.

And with high hopes of her magazine’s success, she wants to branch out to other lifestyle-type magazines in the future. But for now, Duemer is happy with her close-to-home setup.

“This magazine is close to my heart, being born and raised here,” she said.

And for the status of Duemer’s backyard, she’s still fantasizing about it having a printing press.