Bathroom remodeling in Biltmore, AZ

The district takes its name from the resort hotel that opened here in the 1920s. Custom houses followed on the streets circling the golf courses, and that group of homes, Biltmore Estates, has been built and rebuilt across many decades. Most of the attached communities arrived later, between the 1970s and the 1990s, as gated clusters of patio homes, townhomes and condominiums. The area sits in central Phoenix along the Camelback Road corridor, close to the Phoenix Mountains Preserve.

In the attached homes, original bathrooms are efficient and similar from unit to unit: a tub and shower combination in the secondary bath, a cultured marble vanity top, and a primary bath with either a fiberglass shower or a tub set in a tiled deck. Ceilings over the tub or vanity are frequently dropped. The estates have much larger suites. In both cases the plumbing usually stays where it is, and the change comes from new surfaces, glass, lighting and storage.

The Biltmore is not a municipality. It is a district of Phoenix, inside the urban village the city calls Camelback East, so the city's Planning and Development Department is the permit authority. Rerouting plumbing, modifying electrical or removing walls typically requires a permit, while direct cosmetic replacement often does not, and this is checked for every project. Association approval is a separate step. Many Biltmore communities require an application for interior work in attached homes and post rules on hours, elevators and parking.