The History of Sun City: America’s First 55+ Community
Before Sun City opened, active adult living didn’t really exist. Here’s how one builder’s bold idea in the desert changed retirement for the whole country.
Sun City sits northwest of Phoenix, and today it’s easy to take it for granted. Golf courses, rec centers, tidy streets full of active neighbors — it feels like it has always been there. But when it opened on January 1, 1960, there was nothing like it anywhere in the country. It was farmland one year and a whole new way of living the next.
Sun City wasn’t just a place to live. It was an idea — that people over 55 wanted an active, social life, not a quiet back porch. That idea turned out to be right, and it started here.
A bold idea in the desert
The man behind it was Del E. Webb, an Arizona builder who was already well known across the country. His company took a stretch of old farmland called Marinette, northwest of Phoenix, and set out to build something no one had tried before: a full community designed from the ground up for people 55 and older.
Most builders at the time thought it would fail. The common wisdom was that older buyers wanted to move closer to family, not off to a community of their own. Webb bet the opposite — that people wanted their own place, their own activities, and neighbors in the same stage of life. He was about to find out.
“An active way of life”
Sun City opened over a long weekend at the start of 1960 with five model homes, a shopping center, a recreation center, and a golf course all ready to go. That last part mattered: the amenities were there on day one, not promised for later.
Webb’s team expected maybe 10,000 curious visitors. Instead, an estimated 100,000 people poured in over the opening weekend — traffic backed up for miles. By the end of that first weekend, they had sold around 237 homes, a national record for the time. The magazines took notice, and on August 3, 1962, Del Webb landed on the cover of Time magazine. The idea had clearly struck a nerve.
Why the idea worked
Sun City got a few things right that the whole active adult industry still copies today:
It was built for one stage of life. As an age-restricted community, it kept the focus on adults 55 and older. No school traffic, no crowded parks — just a calmer pace and neighbors with the time to enjoy it.
The amenities came first. Golf, pools, and rec centers were ready before most homes were even sold. Residents didn’t have to wait years for the community to fill in.
It was affordable. Webb kept the homes modest and practical — single-level, easy to maintain, priced so an average retiree could actually buy one. That value is still part of Sun City’s appeal.
From one weekend to a whole city
Sun City kept growing through the 1960s and 1970s, adding neighborhoods, golf courses, and recreation centers as it went. By the time it was fully built out around 1978, it had roughly 27,000 homes — a community the size of a small city, and still one of the largest of its kind in the country.
When Sun City ran out of room, Del Webb simply started again next door. Sun City West opened in 1978 as the follow-up, and the model spread from there — eventually to communities like The Grand (formerly Sun City Grand) in Surprise and Del Webb communities nationwide. The Sun City name still carries weight today: Del Webb’s newer Sun City Festival in Buckeye and Sun City Anthem at Merrill Ranch in Florence give buyers that same active lifestyle in brand-new homes. Every one of them traces back to that first weekend in 1960.
Sun City today
More than sixty years on, Sun City is still going strong. It remains an unincorporated part of Maricopa County, run largely by its residents through the Recreation Centers of Sun City, with seven recreation centers and eight golf courses plus pools, clubs, and activities for nearly any interest. The homes are older now, but the community’s original promise — active, affordable, age-restricted living — is exactly what it still delivers.
For a lot of buyers, that history is part of the draw. There’s something to being in the community that started it all — and Sun City’s decades of established shade trees, paid-off amenities, and deep social calendar are hard for a brand-new community to match. If you want to see the story up close, the Del Webb Sun Cities Museum sits inside one of the original 1960 model homes and tells it in full.
What the history means if you’re buying today
Sun City’s age is its charm and its trade-off. On the plus side, it’s one of the most affordable ways into 55+ living in the Valley, with mature landscaping and amenities that were paid off long ago. The honest flip side: many homes are original and may want updating — though the big-ticket items (roof, A/C, water heater) have often already been replaced, with years of life left. We check that on every home so you know exactly what you’re getting.
Curious how Sun City compares to its newer neighbors? See our full Sun City buyer’s guide and the guide to Sun City West, or read how Arizona 55+ communities work.
Want to walk the community that started it all? When you come to town, you ride with us and we drive — our gas, not yours. We’ll show you around Sun City, point out the differences between its neighborhoods, and compare it honestly to the newer communities nearby.
Coming in from out of state? Most of our buyers are, and we work that way all the time.
Thinking about Sun City?
Tell us what you’re looking for and your budget, and we’ll help you find the right home in the community that started active adult living.
Call or Text: (480) 710-6326 Contact PageCommunity information and historical details are summarized for general guidance and can change; verify specifics with the association before you buy. Jarl Kubat is a licensed Arizona REALTOR® with West USA Realty. This content is reviewed and approved by Jarl Kubat, a licensed Arizona agent with 22+ years in the state’s 55+ communities.