Ready to travel a new road

On the day David Hoffman announced that he was selling his iconic Lil’ Abner’s Steak House in Marana, the former defense attorney said he was ready to fully downsize his life.

Next on his list: Selling his 10-acre Rancho de los Cerros, the sprawling former YWCA camp in the middle of Catalina State Park where he and his wife, Molly, raised their two kids and entertained tens of thousands of corporate clients over nearly three decades. He is asking upwards of $9 million.

Once best known for representing some of Tucson’s most notorious defendants, Hoffman at 71 said he has spent more than half his life on the ranch, raising a family, riding and breeding horses, and hosting corporate clients and celebrities.

“I don’t know what we’ll do. We’ll see,” he said recently, sitting in the living room with Molly, watching a coyote lap water from a stream trickling over rocks outside their picture window.

If he had his way, Hoffman said he would buy a little house or condominium. Or maybe split his time between Hawaii in the winter and Alaska in the summer.

But ask his wife or his friends if David Hoffman is the retiring type, and you get a different story.

“He says that, but it will never happen,” said Tucson civil law attorney Ron Mercaldo, who has known Hoffman since the two attended the University of Arizona law school in the late 1960s. “It’s just not him. It’s not his personality. He’s larger than life. He may move out of Rancho de los Cerros … but I can’t picture him sitting on the porch and doing nothing. I just can’t picture it.”

“There is no way,” Molly Hoffman said. “I said to David just last night, ‘You got one more left in you, I know you do. We are going to find one more project.’”

THE EARLY YEARS

David Hoffman arrived in Tucson in 1967 with a freshly minted psychology degree from Duke University, $1,200 in his pocket and an acceptance letter to the University of Arizona law school.

He also wanted a project and he found it in his first Tucson home, a small two-bedroom house on East Hedrick Drive off East Fort Lowell Road not far from campus that he and his first wife, Judy, bought for $11,500.

“We didn’t have a television set until after the first Christmas,” he recalled.

In his free time he transformed his carport into a bar and did minor upgrades to the home.

After graduating from law school in 1971, he landed a job as a federal prosecutor, earning about $14,000 a year trying drug, immigration and organized crime cases. He lasted a couple years before following a friend’s advice to go into criminal defense. The money was far better; he earned $60,000 his first year on his own.

Right out of the gate, he landed what would become his career case: defending spree killer Douglas Gretzler in early 1974.

“The judge called me up and said, ‘I got a case for you’, ” Hoffman recalled.” “ ‘No you don’t,’ I told him. I knew what case it was.”

Gretzler and friend Willie Luther Steelman had been sentenced to life in prison in California for massacring nine members of two families in a botched robbery. It was part of a crime spree that left 17 dead across two states in 1973. Gretzler pleaded guilty to nine counts of first-degree murder.

Gretzler also told authorities about the execution-style murder and robbery of a young couple in Tucson. The victims, selected randomly, lived in a UA-area condominium near Hoffman’s home. Pima County prosecutors returned the men to Tucson to face charges — unlike California, Arizona had the death penalty.

“It was scary going to see him in the jail,” Hoffman recalled of meeting Gretzler for the first time. “I didn’t know what kind of monster I was going to find.”

Instead, Hoffman said he found Gretzler to be “a fairly normal, fairly intelligent human being who had been taken apart by drugs.”

“What he did was monstrous; I don’t think he was ever a monster,” he explained. “The drugs made him into where he didn’t care.”

With the publicity surrounding the trial, the proceedings were moved to Prescott in fall 1975. Hoffman said he spent a couple years on the case, which he lost. Gretzler was convicted and sentenced to death — a sentence carried out in June 1998.

Hoffman was paid $10,000 for nearly two years of full-time work. He said he used the money for a trip to Club Med.

“This was a case where I don’t know who could have won,” Hoffman said. “You feel like ‘I’ve got to find a way to win this case.’ But I don’t think anyone could have won it.”

“When I went to see him about six months before the execution, I said, ‘Doug I can put this execution off for you if you want me to get back into the case.’ He said no, it’s time to go. He had resolved he was going to pay.”

The next project

By the late 1970s, Hoffman, now divorced, was looking for his next project. He found it in a 2ƒ-acre spread on East Greenlee Road and North Campbell Avenue. He bought the property for $150,000 and set about transforming it into an urban oasis complete with a gym, tennis courts and stables and a tack room for his seven horses.

“It was a great house,” said Mike Reilly, a Tucson contractor who met Hoffman when he did sewer work on the home in 1983.

Hoffman bought commercial property on North Campbell Avenue near his home and set up a law office; other lawyers rented space from him. His client list grew to include Don Norman, who owned Lil’ Abner’s, and Norman’s son, Michael, who with his twin brother Mark Norman were reputed leaders in Tucson’s illegal drug trade.

Hoffman represented Michael Norman in 1979 in a $650,000 counterfeiting scheme that ended at Lil’ Abner’s, where police found tens of thousands of dollars worth of bogus bills buried in cola canisters behind the restaurant, according to news reports from the time.

As police dug up the evidence, Hoffman said he sat in the dining room, staring into the ashes in the restaurant’s fireplace when something caught his eye. “I saw all these ashes with bills sticking up,” he said.

“I got him a hell of a deal,” he said of the 15-year sentence Norman received after being convicted.

Less than two years later, Don Norman offered to sell Hoffman Lil’ Abner’s for $1 million. Hoffman said he offered a little less and paid for it over time. The restaurant, sitting on nearly nine acres along North Silverbell Road, was making $125,000 a year back then, Hoffman recalled, a tidy sum for a far-flung steakhouse.

Hoffman said he made the deal and walked away from practicing law. In 1993 he did step back in — to successfully sue the UA in an intellectual property case. Hoffman said he earned $1 million, which he used to pay off the Lil’ Abner’s loan.

All leading up to this

Hoffman stumbled onto Rancho los Cerros in much the same way he came to own Lil’ Abners: being at the right place at the right time.

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By then he’d been running the restaurant three years, routinely putting in 12-hour days. Among the ways he relaxed was riding horses.

On a ride with a friend in the Catalina Mountains, he galloped right into the former YWCA camp. “It didn’t have a gate. It didn’t have a road. It was all dirt roads. ‘What the hell is that?’ ” he recalled thinking.

He did a little digging and learned the property was vacant and had fallen into disrepair. And it was on the market. The YWCA wanted $750,000; Hoffman said he offered less than half that.

He had no idea what he would do with the sprawling ranch. Its history dates back to 1906 or 1907 when a Mexican farmer named Jesus homesteaded the property. It changed hands several times over the century, serving in various roles including as a dude ranch in the early 1940s and as a summer camp for decades after it was donated to the YWCA in 1961. The YWCA leased the ranch to a drug rehab company in the years before Hoffman purchased it.

“I bought it thinking it was neat,” he said. “I could put a barn on it, put my horses on it.”

But with some work, he envisioned turning the property into a corporate retreat, a place where Fortune 500 companies would bring hundreds of executives for a taste of the Southwest that they couldn’t get at a resort in the foothills.

He got his first booking six months after taking over the property: a party for 800 with American Express. Hoffman had 18 months to get it ready.

“That was pretty much a disaster when he bought it,” said Hoffman’s longtime friend Reilly. “If you saw the ranch before he bought it, the big room with the bell tower and the waterfall — he drew (that) up on a napkin. He didn’t have any plans drawn up. He did it on a napkin and then he built it. He has an eye to see things. He’s a smart guy.”

Hoffman estimates he’s pumped $2 million into the ranch. He renovated the Spanish colonial-style main house, adding an office, the 43-foot bell tower that peeks out from towering trees in the front lawn, and living quarters for his family.

He also overhauled a three-bedroom guest house into the “Boys Club” where he would smoke cigars and play pool with friends, and he added a 12-car/RV garage. He built stables for his horses — he began breeding horses and at one point had 43 on the property — and built an adjoining 4,396-square-foot barn. The barn has since been converted into a conference room with two full bars and garage-style doors that open out into the arena.

“He turned that place from an absolute wreck — it was a dilapidated, old drug rehab place — and that place (today) is spectacular,” said Mercaldo. “It was a huge transformation.”

“Being a high-powered attorney and then to be able to do that, to have that type of imagination. You don’t see that in people anymore,” said Buck Thomas, a Catalina contractor who became best friends with Hoffman after he did work out on the ranch.

For 20 years, the Hoffmans hosted corporate parties that included a cast of big-name entertainers —John Denver, Lee Greenwood, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Pat Green and the Beach Boys.

“We once did 15 parties in 20 nights for different companies,” Hoffman said.

Business was good until the economy went south a few years ago. Corporations tightened their belts and executive retreats were among the first things to go.

“We had our ride. It was a very good one,” said Molly Hoffman, 55.

The loss of business, which Molly Hoffman said was more for fun than profit, was only one factor in their decision to sell Rancho los Cerros.

Four years ago, David Hoffman suffered a stroke while golfing with his wife and friends on an Oro Valley course. At first he didn’t realize anything had happened, but Molly Hoffman noticed that her husband’s memory was off and he was much quieter than usual. He was hospitalized a couple days later and underwent months of rehabilitation, he said.

“Basically I have been kind of relaxing since then. I haven’t done a whole lot since the stroke,” he said.

Ready to move on

In June, after announcing he was selling Lil’ Abners, Hoffman led a reporter and photographer around his sprawling home.

Wearing a Duke University ball cap and gym shorts, he looked into his son’s old bedroom. Guitars still hung on the walls and the bed was made. His wife opened a closet to reveal some of her son’s clothes, left behind when Tucker moved out a few years ago.

Hoffman showed off the ornate craftsmanship that went into the master bedroom’s bathroom. Equally impressive was the sterling silver-studded Edward Bohlin saddle displayed in the entryway of the main house. Two more Bohlins are on exhibit in the Boys Club guest house.

In the living room he pushed a button on a remote control to lower a big projector screen, covering the V-shaped picture window. It’s perfect for movie night, he said with a smile that recalled many nights spent with his family.

Hoffman’s tour led down a hall off the large commercial kitchen, complete with a 1940s Wolf range. He stopped in front of a door made from an old steel barrel that opened to reveal a fully stocked wine cellar. He also showed off Western fine art that ranges from big bronze sculptures to paintings.

Whoever buys the ranch gets it all. Hoffman said he is selling the property as-is, with all the furniture, appliances, wine and artwork included.

Hoffman said he’s leaving with his clothes, cars and memories that include marrying Molly on the ranch and raising their kids there.

“We’d run around the washes and the arena. Everybody would come over and we’d swim,” said son Tucker, 24, who waits tables at Lil’ Abners a few nights a week and lives in Oro Valley near his parents.

But now, he said, “it’s missing a piece of what I grew up with. I’m sad. I grew up there. I loved to come back there.”

“Life changed,” Molly Hoffman said. “Business changed. ... Time goes on and we’re getting older.’”

Hoffman said he hasn’t figured out yet what he will do when he sells the ranch and the restaurant.

“Maybe I’ll build a rocket ship and go to the moon,” he joked, then quickly added, “No, I don’t feel like going to the moon.”

Molly Hoffman said she thinks her husband might be up for another project, though it won’t be nearly as elaborate as Rancho de los Cerros.

“Something to keep his mind going,” she said. “I think he wants to live the rest of his life out with his peace and calmness and surround himself with beauty.”

“It’s been a very interesting life,” Hoffman said. “It turned out a lot more interesting than I thought it was going to turn out. ... When you look at it, you think about the law that I practiced and the fact that I ended up buying the restaurant from a client then bought the ranch and worked the ranch. It’s been a very good life. Of course it’s not over; I’m 71.”