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John Wesley Miller doesn't just know Tucson; he knows its old houses — and in many cases, the bones of them.

He grew up in Midtown, the son of a carpenter and builder who put up many of the city's houses in the 1940s and '50s.

Miller would help his father on weekends and during vacations and, after dropping out of the University of Arizona, he entered the building trade full time.

So when the chance came to develop housing on the site of an old railroad property in Downtown's historic Armory Park neighborhood, Miller seemed to be an ideal candidate.

"I grew up just a few miles away, and I still know people who grew up in Armory Park," he says.

A longtime advocate of solar energy — he counts Bio- sphere 2 and Tucson Solar Village, later to become Civano, among his past projects — Miller laid out his plans for an energy-efficient development that would fit in well with the surrounding neighborhood, near South Third Avenue and East 16th Street.

The residents of one of the city's oldest neighborhoods had their doubts.

"They don't trust anybody; you have to earn your trust (with them)," Miller says. "They chased three other builders out of this land before I got here."

After many meetings, including one-on-ones, Miller started to win the residents over with his promise of houses that would complement the existing ones and blend in aesthetically and physically.

In these days of warehouse lofts and gargantuan custom homes, Armory Park del Sol is a throwback, with its porches, sidewalks, small lots and not a security gate in sight.

"I just copied what was already there," he says. "It was not just about energy; it was about community and what could we do as builders and developers to improve our quality of life."

Miller's strategy for energy efficiency has three elements: good insulation, thick walls and quality windows.

You'll find insulation under the concrete floors and in between layers of stucco on the exterior. (See sidebar.) In addition, solar panels and passive solar water heaters are used.

There is also a Zero Energy Home in the development, and one more is planned. These homes feature active solar hot-water systems designed to provide almost all of an average family's water and home heating needs.

"This year their (electricity) bill should hit $15 a month," Miller says. The aim is to get close to a net zero energy bill.

In the other homes, the average electricity bill is between $525 and $825 per year, Miller says.

Mike Wells, a semiretired UA professor, bought an Armory Park del Sol home with his wife, Mary, in 2003. He says he pays no more than $50 a month in electricity bills in the summer, compared with up to $250 a month in his former home, on a 2-acre parcel west of Tucson.

Wells says he has no regrets about letting go of 2 acres and a 2,800-square-foot home for 1,700 square feet at Armory Park del Sol.

"The traffic (driving in to work) was becoming a problem, and we never saw anybody except coyotes and javelinas. The neighbors (in Armory Park) are terrific, and we enjoy being close to restaurants and Downtown," he says.

And the downsides?

"There's a certain amount of crime," Wells says. "We've had our house tagged (spray-painted by vandals), and a number of people have had things stolen off their porches. A lot of people just don't put things on their front porch anymore, and if they do, they chain them to the floor. But we feel quite safe."

A few months ago, Miller hired a security guard to patrol the development at night.

He has reaped numerous awards for his efforts on the development, and he says he "couldn't be happier" with the way the project has turned out.

But part of his dream fell by the wayside. He originally had intended to incorporate some affordable housing into the development, his theory being that, in the old days, "in every block there was a rich guy and a poor guy."

With prices at Armory Park del Sol starting at $369,000, "it's definitely priced out a number of people," Wells says.

But Miller is happy with the cross section of residents. "There's a single-mother teacher and a retired medical doctor; there are lawyers and engineers. Engineers seem to like the place a lot!"

He's being courted to replicate the development in other parts of the country, including New Mexico and Florida.

And he says he doesn't see why his concept couldn't extend to Third World countries, too. "They need solar energy even more."