O'Connor's former house moved to park

TEMPE, Ariz., Oct. 22 (UPI) -- The adobe house where U.S. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor raised her family on an Arizona ranch has been moved to a historical park near Phoenix.

The house is now on a cliff in Papago Park in Tempe, The Arizona Republic reported. The house was taken apart for the move and the adobe bricks, almost 3,000 of them, were then reassembled at the park.

"I burst into tears, it was so perfect," O'Connor said Sunday after seeing her old home in its new location.

The retired justice held what she called a "mudslinging party" to apply a milk-and-mud mixture to the outside to seal the adobe. She said the sealant was used by Indians who built the first adobe houses in the Southwest and discovered the protein in milk keeps adobe from flaking off.

"John and I wanted to live in a sun-dried adobe (house) because it speaks to me of the desert," she said.

Richard Nixon and Barry Goldwater were both guests at the house, and O'Connor was still living there when she was vetted for Supreme Court.

Volunteers kicked off the O'Connor House Project to move the building after learning the current owners planned to tear it down..