Standing on his newly purchased patch of bare Arizona desert in 1951, Grover Cleveland Thompson found the place to make his dreams come alive. Using abundant local resources of dirt, sand, rocks, broken crockery, Halloween masks, scrap metal and other artistic essentials, Grover spent the next several decades building a Gaudí-esque wonderland in Phoenix. He continued to work on the project right up until he passed away in 1977. Later, Marion Blake lovingly preserved Thompsons rock garden not only from the ravages of time, but also from a project to gouge…
