The L. Ron Hubbard House at Camelback in Phoenix Wins 2007 Arizona Governor’s Heritage Preservation Honor Award

The Friends of L. Ron Hubbard Foundation and the Church of Scientology International received the Arizona Governor’s Heritage Preservation Award this week for the painstaking restoration they did of the house where L. Ron Hubbard lived from 1952 to 1955 in Phoenix, Arizona. Presented by Mr. Vince Murray, President of the Arizona Preservation Foundation, the award recognizes people, organizations, and projects that represent outstanding achievements in preserving Arizona’s historic and prehistoric resources.

The award for this particular restoration is very fitting, as Arizona played a pivotal role in the formative years of the Scientology religion. It was in Phoenix that L. Ron Hubbard realized the scope of the subject he had embarked upon, which he expressed in these terms:

"From the time I discovered that a human being is not his body, and demonstrated that through Scientology auditing* an individual can attain certainty of his identity apart from that of the body, I have been, with some reluctance, out beyond any realm of the scientific known. Knowing this, I must face the fact that we have reached that merger point where science and religion meet, and we must now cease to pretend to deal with material goals alone.

"Scientology is the subject of knowing how to know. It has taught us that a man is his own immortal soul. And it gives us little choice but to announce to a world, no matter how it receives it, that nuclear physics and religion have joined hands and that we in Scientology perform those miracles for which man, through his entire search, has hoped."

During the three years that he made his home in the Camelback House, Mr. Hubbard delivered more than 500 instructional lectures including the famous "Phoenix Lectures," to local residents and the thousands of Scientologists who traveled to Phoenix from around the world to learn the latest news of his research discoveries. And it was while Mr. Hubbard lived in Phoenix that the first Scientology churches were founded, and the only major world religion to emerge in the 20th Century came into being.

Mr. Hubbard also wrote some of the most basic Scientology texts from his home in Phoenix: books that contain the basics of the Scientology religion and are studied by Scientologists the world over to this day.

It was also in Phoenix, in 1954, at the very dawn of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S., that L. Ron Hubbard expressed the commitment of the Church and all its members to uphold the rights of others, when he issued the Creed of the Church of Scientology, which begins with the words:

"We of the Church believe:

"That all men of whatever race, color, or creed were created with equal rights."

Two years of intensive research went into the planning of this restoration project to recreate the house and its furnishings exactly as they were at the time Mr. Hubbard lived there, more than 50 years ago. Those carrying out the project found and interviewed Scientologists who had attended the courses and lectures Mr. Hubbard conducted while in Phoenix and who had visited the house. Project personnel studied and used Scientologists' photographs and memorabilia from that period, they pulled documents that were on file with the City of Phoenix planning office, and an historical restorations expert who directed the project conducted a thorough inspection of the building against all the information that was collected, all to create a completely accurate reconstruction of the house.

But while the project made sure of the accuracy of every detail, it is half a century since L. Ron Hubbard lived and worked there, and it would not have conveyed the essence of the building and its history if the furnishings and fixtures looked brand new. So care was taken to ensure it looked the way Camelback House would look in the 21st Century had it been kept and maintained by the Church ever since Mr. Hubbard lived there.

The restoration of the L. Ron Hubbard Camelback house is part of a project by the Church to restore and preserve important landmarks in Mr. Hubbard’s life and the history of the Scientology religion. Other completed restorations include L. Ron Hubbard’s homes in Washington D.C, where he lived when he was Executive Director of the Founding Church of Scientology, and his home on Fitzroy Street in London, England and on Linksfield Ridge in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Camelback House is open to the public. To arrange a tour, email tours@lrhinphoenix.org, call (602) 840-5060 or visit the web site at http://www.lronhubbard.org/heritage-sites/phoenix.html

*Auditing: the application of Dianetics or Scientology processes and procedures to someone by an auditor—a person trained and qualified in applying Dianetics and/or Scientology processes and procedures to individuals for their betterment—called an auditor because auditor means one who listens.