Long-time Sedona resident, developer and contractor Dave Carl Blauert, died Tuesday, March 16.
Late last year, he sold his iconic Blauert Building complex on Stutz Bearcat Drive at the corner of State Route 89A to long-time Sedona resident Luke Sefton.
Blauert’s legacy will continue in the hands of Sefton, who is also a community contributor.
“It really has sunk in although I feel totally honored to be the new owner of the property,” Sefton said in December. “Dave is a tremendous individual who has constantly given back to the community. He’s also my friend and mentor who helped me get started back in October 2013.”
“Luke is the perfect choice to hand the baton to,” Blauert said in December. I’m so glad to transfer all of this to someone younger who’s on the same page who will carry on as I did.”
Over 45 years, Blauert’s landmark of western façade storefronts housed contractors, a mom and pop café, engravers and the local barbershop which is still in business there.
It’s also become a popular tourist stop with inaccurate stories circulating that the group of Western-looking buildings were once a Hollywood set. Although film shoot stories are not exactly accurate, there is a Hollywood connection. When Blauert was finishing the outside of the Garland building on State Route 179, a man approached Blauert about the finishing touches to the building: Bob Jolly, Walt Disney’s top park designer.
The two became friends and Blauret hired Jolly to finish the Garland building along with his other property on Stutz Bearcat. It was Jolly’s idea for the entire block of buildings to appear as a Western movie set.
Across Stutz Bearcat Drive there used to be a church housed in a building which Blauert also owned. After a rebuild in the 1990s, it became the first home of the Shugrue’s restaurant.
Born in Minnesota in 1943, Blauert came to the Sedona area in 1961 when he was 18 years old to work a summer job. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps, serving as a combat engineer, and returned to Sedona after he was honorably discharged.
When one digs deep, they’ll find Blauert’s history of contribution to Sedona. He developed the residential subdivisions of Les Springs, Casa Contenta, Crimson View, Wyndham Resort, Zoni and Sundance in Village of Oak Creek, built around 800 homes, eight parks, the Bank of America building in West Sedona, facilities for Verde Valley Medical Center, the Navajo Nation’s headquarters in Window Rock and numerous government buildings for both the tribe and Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.
“When I came here there were 1,000 people; the opportunity was here,” Blauert said.
Blauert’s philanthropy is behind many community spaces. He wrote grants and raised money along with recruiting the Marine Corps League, and helped develop Posse Grounds Park. He raised the funds for the ball and soccer field, tennis courts, the Jack Malmgren Memorial Skate Park, Sedona Community Pool and Sedona Teen Center, which is now known as the Sedona Posse Grounds Hub and is rented out to the public for meetings, performances, concerts, conventions, weddings and parties.
Blauert co-founded and worked alongside several committees fundraising for the fruition of the Sedona Military Park, Jack Jamesen Memorial Sculpture Park and the Verde Valley Military Park in Cottonwood. He enlisted close friends and community leaders to work with him in The Sedona 30, an organization of business owners, builders, philanthropists and leaders.
This group has assisted in a long list of nonprofit organizations including the creation of the Sedona-Oak Creek School District and the funding and constriction of Sedona Red Rock High School and Sedona Performing Arts Center at the high school. He also served a term on the Sedona First District Governing Board and as vice president of the Big Park Regional Coordinating Council.
Blauert is survived by two daughters, who both live in Colorado, and four grandchildren.
By Shondra Jepperson/Special to Larson Newspapers
and Christopher Fox Graham/Larson Newspapers
