Los Pinos Ranch Added to HSFF's Register

Los Pinos Ranch

At the August 25, 2022 Board of Directors meeting, the Education, Research, and Archives Committee recommended to the Board that Los Pinos Ranch be added to the HSFF Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation. The ranch was approved, adding another property with a fascinating history to the Register. Many of the guest ranches that once checkered northern New Mexico have now disappeared, as have many of the Spanish Log construction buildings in the region. Still operational and with great architectural integrity, Los Pinos Ranch is an enduring emblem of the economic activity and architectural typology that characterized the region during the early to mid 1900s.

Los Pinos Ranch, founded in 1912 by Amado Chaves, has operated as a guest ranch for a century. Part of the phenomenon of wealthy and educated individuals from the East Coast seeking outdoor recreation in a rustic yet cultivated atmosphere, Los Pinos Ranch was home to and the place of respite for many historically significant people. Notable figures who occupied the ranch include Charles Lummis, Marc Simmons, Paul Horgan, and Robert J. Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer frequented the ranch over a period which spanned decades, starting when he was a teenager. His horseback rides with Amado’s daughter Kia Chaves, a lifelong friend, eventually led Oppenheimer to the site of the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos.

Alan “Mac” Watson researched and wrote the nomination for the property on behalf of the ranch’s owners Alice M. McSweeney and William J. McSweeney. The McSweeney family is one of two families who owned and operated the ranch. The McSweeney and Chaves families both meticulously maintained guest registers, diaries, letters, photographs, and videos which provided Mac with a wealth of details on the ranch’s history. The property and its facilities, the history of its use through today, as well as the significance of the people associated with Los Pinos Ranch over a century, position Los Pinos Ranch as a place worthy of preservation and recognition. It is an honor to include such a remarkable property on HSFF’s Register.

LEARN MORE ABOUT HSFF'S REGISTER

Grill-Lucero House on the Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation

Intro to Grill-Lucero House
658 Granada Street, the Grill-Lucero House, is a notable example of a Spanish Pueblo Revival bungalow and its history illustrates the importance of middle-class contributors to Santa Fe’s architectural development.  The home was built in Don Gaspar in 1928 during a building boom that marked the Spanish Pueblo Revival bungalow’s popularization and its eclipse of other competing bungalow styles.  Fred Grill, an overlooked but pivotal local builder, constructed the house.  This project helped launch his career, which went on to include significant collaborations with John Gaw Meem.  He became perhaps Santa Fe’s most active builder and architect during the 1930s and early 1940s.  Blanche Lucero (née Cadman) and her husband Antonio Lucero Jr. were the first owners and inhabitants of the home.  While Antonio soon died in 1932, Blanche continued to own the house for decades.  She spent her career working for the New Mexico State Treasurer’s Office, ultimately becoming the highest-ranking female state employee.  Her ownership of the house illustrates that the adaptation of the Santa Fe style was contingent upon the tastes of not just artists and tourists but also the city’s burgeoning professional population.  The house that is the namesake of Grill and Lucero is thus testament to their impact on Santa Fe’s cultural development.

The Grill-Lucero House is a fusion of the craftsman bungalow with Santa Fe’s local vernacular style.  Structurally, 658 Granada is an archetypal craftsman bungalow in its construction.  Made out of pentile bricks, the house is a simple square design with an open floorplan.  Grill added six-pane, light wooden casement and hopper windows throughout the house, arranging them in double and triple sets to adhere to the craftsman style’s preference for balanced asymmetry.  At the same time, however, Grill masterfully incorporated features of the Santa Fe style into the design of the house.  He installed a flat rather than pitched roof with raised parapets and projecting canales.  To make the walls resemble adobe and give the house simplified, rounded massing, he covered the pentile with brown stucco. Along the raised front porch, he installed wooden trim, exposed vigas, and corbels to make it resemble a recessed portal.  The result was a house that maintained the ethos of bungalow functionality while also adhering to the key elements of the city’s Spanish Pueblo Revival style.

Biography
Oliver Horn and Robynne Mellor both received PhDs in History from Georgetown University. They have experience teaching at Georgetown University and Western Carolina University. Oliver is the co-author of The Roque Lobato House (Schenck Southwest, 2014) a New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards Finalist in 2015 and Robynne contributed a chapter about uranium mining in Grants, New Mexico to Mining North America (University of California Press, 2017).

Currently, Oliver and Robynne run Sunmount Consulting in Santa Fe, where they are working with the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division to develop and write the ten-year state historic preservation plan. Among other services, Sunmount Consulting also helps clients navigate the process of obtaining tax credits for historic properties. To learn more, please visit www.sunmountconsulting.com.

The Roque Lobato House - A Book on HSFF's Register Property Lobato - Morley House

PURCHASE BOOK AT BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE

The Roque Lobato House
Santa Fe, New Mexico
by Chris Wilson and Oliver Horn
Photography by Robert Reck
Schenck Southwest Publishing
2014

Description from book jacket:
The eighteenth-century world that Roque Lobato, soldier and eventual armorer to the Royal Spanish Garrison of Santa Fe, entered was a dark, turbulent, and unforgiving place. Born into a poor family most likely in the 1730s, Lobato grew up during a time when the nature of the Spanish colony was changing. Brash and perulant, Lobato avoided almost certain indentured servitude by opting for the dangerous course of winning honor and wealth as a soldier. As a reward for his many years of participation in the Comanche Indian Wars, Governor Juan Bautista de Anza granted the land for the construction of the Roque Lobato House.

Built in 1785, the Roque Lobato House has not only witnessed transformative historical events but also actively participated in some. In the nineteenth century, the house was intimately involved with Don Gaspar Ortiz y Alarid and the activities of the notorious Santa Fe Ring, known for defrauding New Mexicans of their land titles.

In the twentieth century, the by then renovated house served as a prototype for archacologist and occasional spy Sylvanus G. Morley's Spanish Pueblo revival architectural style, ultimately adopted as the Santa Fe style that unified the city architecture and attracted tourists to the city. Most recently, the Roque Lobato House underwent an extensive renovation that removed many of the changes made in the previous few decades.

Chris Wilson and Oliver Horn trace the long history of the Roque Lobato House and its fascinating owners. This house was not only pivotal in the development of Santa Fe style but also one of Santa Fe’s most historic houses.

About the Authors:
CHRIS WILSON, former J. B. Jackson Professor of Cultural Landscape Studies of the University of New Mexico School of Architecture and Planning in Albuquerque, and founding director of the its Historic Preservation and Regionalism Program, has written widely on architecture, tourism, and the politics of culture in the Southwest. His coauthored book La Tierna Amarilla: Its History, Architecture, and Cultunal Landscape (1991) won the Downing Award from the Society of Architectural Historians. His book The Myth of Santa Fe: Creating a Modern Regional Tnadition (1997) received the Villagra Award from the Historical Society of New Mexico and the Cummings Award from the Vernacular Architecture Forum. Facing Southwest: The Life & Houses of John Gaw Meem (200) sings the virtues of both one of Santa Fe's leading citizens and the regional design tradition he helped to sustain. Everyday America: Cultural Landscape Studies After J, B. Jackson (2003), also coauthored, provides the most up-to-date survey of cultural landscapes. Wilson was lead author and editor of the award-winning study The Plazas of New Mexico (2011). A Field Guide to Cool Neighborhoods, focuses of pedestrian neighborhoods in North America before and after the automobile.

OLIVER HORN is urrently a PhD candidate in US Diplomatic History at Georgetown University. He also holds an MA degree from Georgetown University in Global International and Comparative History. He
graduated magna cum laude with a BA degree from Washington and Lee University, double majoring in US History and Politics. He has written numerous articles for Heritage Foundation. This is his first book.

Read about the Lobato - Morley on HSFF’s Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation nomination written by Dr. Audra Bellmore.

The Roque Lobato House, Santa Fe, NM

$39.95

The Roque Lobato House
Santa Fe, New Mexico
by Chris Wilson and Oliver Horn
Photography by Robert Reck
Schenck Southwest Publishing
2014

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Three Properties Added to HSFF's Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation

Historic Santa Fe Foundation recognizes the Dorothy McKibbin House, Roque - Lobato House, and El Delirio/SAR campus

Photograph of El Delirio/SAR above by Simone Frances for the new edition of Old Santa Fe Today

At the August 27, 2020 Board of Directors meeting, the  Historic Santa Fe Foundation's Board of Directors voted to add three properties -- The Dorothy McKibbin House, Lobato - Morley House, and El Delirio/School for Advanced Research (SAR) to the HSFF Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation. The properties were approved unanimously by the Board and the Register now holds a total of 96 to be included in the new edition of HSFF's upcoming book Old Santa Fe Today authored by Dr. Audra Bellmore with photography by Simone Frances, and published by Museum of New Mexico Press. The book will the culmination of all the efforts of those who nominated, researched, and listed properties and resources on HSFF’s Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation, one of the first initiatives of the foundation since the incorporation in 1962. There are many properties in Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico that deserve this attention and recognition. Our efforts in listing these historic structures and resources brings attention and awareness to the need for their continued preservation and maintenance.

Please find brief information below about the three new nominated, reserched, and approved properties. Contact Pete Warzel at pete.warzel@historicsantafe.org or 505-983-2567 for more information or visit HSFF's 545 blog piece on the three new properties or HSFF's Register page.

Terraced landscaping at El Delirio, as viewed from the White sisters’ home. Photo by T. Harmon Parkhurst, 1928, SAR Archive, AC 18 418 30a, Courtesy of the School for Advanced Research

El Delirio/SAR
Nomination written by Dr. Nancy Owen Lewis and Jean Schamberg

You may know this property as the campus of the School for Advanced Research (SAR). “El Delirio” is the original name given the estate by the White sisters, Amelia Elizabeth and Martha, who purchased the land, including a small adobe house, in 1923.

Dr. Nancy Owen Lewis, PhD, and Jean Schaumberg, each with intimate knowledge of SAR and the estate, researched and wrote the nomination for the property. Lewis has previously published the book A Peculiar Alchemy: A Centennial History of the School for American Research, 1907-2007.

The property and its architecture, the history of its use through today, as well as the significance of the people associated with El Delirio over almost a century, certainly signify the former estate worthy of preservation, recognition, and addition to the HSFF Register. It is an honor to make that addition.

View the Register listing for El Delirio/SAR

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Photograph of Lobato - Morley House above by Simone Frances for the new edition of Old Santa Fe Today

The Lobato – Morley House
Nomination written by Dr. Audra Bellmore
The Roque  Lobato House was one of the first properties added to the newly instituted HSFF Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation in 1964. In 1978, it was unceremoniously removed when the then owner did renovation and reconstruction after asking HSFF to review his plans, but completed the work before any evaluation was undertaken. The property remained on the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties and lingered contentiously in the background of HSFF history.

Chris Wilson, Regents Professor of Landscape Architecture, Emeritus, at University of New Mexico (UNM), co-authored the book on the property with Oliver Horn titled The Roque Lobato House: Santa Fe, New Mexico (2014). In that publication, Wilson opined that “…the Roque Lobato House is unique even among its peers in its historic breadth and density.” So, in mid-2020, Dr. Audra Bellmore, PhD, Associate Professor and Curator of the Center for Southwest Research, Special Collections, at UNM, researched and wrote the nomination for the more properly named Lobato – Morley House.

HSFF welcomes back this Santa Fe treasure to the Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation, where it belongs.

View the Register listing for Lobato - Morley House here

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The Dorothy McKibbin House
Nomination written by Katie Dix

This home is an architectural gem and a fairly unknown center of significant Santa Fe and U.S. history. Dorothy McKibbin was the renowned ‘gatekeeper’ at 109 E. Palace Avenue in Santa Fe for entry and exit to the WWII-era Manhattan Project up the hill at Los Alamos Laboratories. This was her home, built in 1936, and the center of social life for scientists and employees at the Lab when in Santa Fe.

The nomination was researched and written by Katie Dix, a UNM graduate student in the School of Architecture and Planning, and our first official Mac Watson Fellow. This fellowship program was specifically designed to engage grad students from UNM to participate with HSFF in research of significant properties as additions to our Register. Dix’s work and written nomination made an elegant argument that the Dorothy McKibbin House be added as “an outstanding example of New Mexican architecture and Santa Fe styles, showcasing the work of Kathy Stinson Otero as an architect.”

For more information or questions, contact Pete Warzel at pete.warzel@historicsantafe.org or 505-983-2567 or visit HSFF's 545 blog piece on the three new properties or HSFF's Register page.