Asbury-Salmon House 250/365

Cline and Harry Asbury left Winslow, Arizona, in 1913 and came to Phoenix where Harry founded and Cline managed the Crystal Ice and Cold Storage Company.

Cline Asbury married Della Ritter in 1919, and in the mid-1920s he purchased a nine-plus acre tract of land on Central Avenue from Mrs. William J. Murphy. Except for a citrus grove and a barn, the property remained undeveloped until 1934 when construction began on the house and the family moved into its new home in September 1935.  An aerial photograph of the property soon after its completion shows this beautiful home sitting in the middle of a citrus orchard with no other homes in view.
 
After Cline’s death in 1942 at the age of 55, the estate proved to be too much of a financial burden for Mrs. Asbury. She attempted to keep the property, but in late 1945 she sold her dream home to former Arizona Assistant Attorney General Riney B. Salmon who had moved from Texas to Bisbee, Arizona, in 1908 at the age of five where his father was employed by the Phelps Dodge Corporation (still today one of the largest mining companies in Arizona). After finishing high school, Riney moved to San Diego and sold cars, but eventually returned home and attended the University of Arizona where he graduated from law school in1925 and then began the practice of law in Bisbee. He married Lorraine Polley from Bisbee in 1929 and later that year they moved to Phoenix when Riney was named Assistant Attorney General of Arizona during the administration of Governor George W.P. Hunt.

In 1942, Riney joined with three other attorneys to form the law firm of Jennings, Strouss, Salmon & Trask, which today is still known as Jennings, Strouss & Salmon. Riney Salmon was primarily known as a water rights attorney and served as chief counsel for the Interstate Stream Commission which was involved in the Arizona-California dispute over Colorado River water. He was killed in a car accident in 1970. Two years later his widow remarried and in 1974 subdivided the property. She kept the house and a 1.24- acre parcel for her family residence and sold the other eight acres to a builder/developer and 35 homes were eventually built on the land that was once a part of the Asbury/Salmon citrus grove. Lorraine lived in the home for another 28 years until it was sold in 2000 to its present owners who are still in the process of restoring this beautiful romanticized Mediterranean Revival home. The main house is 5,000 plus square feet and the garage, shop and guest house are in excess of 4,000 square feet. It has 19 rooms plus a basement, and the guest house has seven rooms. The house was featured in Arizona Highways magazine in 1944 and on the HGTV show “If Walls Could Talk” in 2004. It is listed on the Phoenix Historic Preservation Register.