I feel at
rest when I am moving – striding through wide-open land; winding my way through
rocks and trees; or even weaving through a gallery of statues at a museum. On the go I enjoy equally the awareness of
emptiness, and the feeling of proximity as I proceed through either open or
closed spaces.
Back in
Wethersfield Connecticut the houses were too far back to be aware of when you
walked by. Here in Santa Fe, New Mexico
on the other hand, a stroll in the neighborhood can be like weaving your way
through a high-desert sculpture garden.
“The traditional pattern of residential
development consisted of adobe buildings lining narrow streets that were built
with little or no setback. Residences
were often built around a central patio, or placita. In the often harsh desert climate, the
placita offered privacy and refuge from the dust and noise of the streets and
formed the nucleus of activity. New
rooms or separate structures were built around the placita to keep pace with
the growing needs of the extended families.
Because of the pivotal role played by the placita in family and social
activities, landscaping and architectural details were reserved for the
area. Thus, facades of the residences
along the streets often provided a deceptive impression of what lay
inside. With this style, housing units
could be built close to each other without sacrificing privacy. Remnants of this development pattern can be
found in areas settled during the Colonial Period, such as the Canyon Road neighborhood
and the area surrounding the Plaza.” (1999
Santa Fe General Plan)
Our new home in Santa Fe, built
in 2001, has that same little setback and that same deceptive impression of
what lay inside, and (best of all) has one of those placitas. As I look out our office window our north
side neighbor’s stucco wall is almost within arm’s reach. And the house on the
other side provides the southern privacy barrier for our central patio.
Marsha and
I came to New Mexico in May and during our four months of house hunting in we
had the opportunity to experience some of the other ways that this residential tradition
plays out in New Mexico’s capitol.
Like many cities
Santa Fe’s first development began along its main source of water, the eponymous
River, and along the acequias (or irrigation ditches) that fed from it. The pattern of this development was an incremental
reaction to the growth of an extended family settlement – not a predesigned plan. The streets are small and winding, not
uniform – the adobe-constructed houses are close to each other and built right
up to the road. These are the classic
Santa Fe neighborhoods. And Marsha and I
were able to wander through some of them – such as Acequia Madre – during our
Apodaca Hill Airbnb stay on Upper Canyon Road.
“The very phrase Acequia Madre – Mother
Ditch – suggests something rough and elemental: a primordial slash in the earth
from which life springs. Yet Acequia
Madre is one of the priciest streets in Santa Fe. That’s Santa Fe, where mud
homes on dirt roads are prime real estate. A few minutes’ stroll will convince
you of the neighborhood’s charm. Softly curved walls, aged Mexican doors with
weathered paint, cascades of wisteria and drowsy willows: this road that runs
along the eponymous waterway – and parallels famed Canyon Road– is iconic Eastside Santa Fe. Romantic and time bound.” (santaferealestatedowntown.com)
This
vernacular adobe motif – along with a smattering of Victorian, Pueblo Revival
and Craftsman Bungalow buildings – appears
in what is now called the South Capitol area where Marsha and I spent our first
three-and-one-half months when first we moved out here. Built at the end of the 19th and
early 20th centuries – and at that time the Jewish section of town according
to our Airbnb property manager – this locality consists mostly of narrow
streets arranged in a right angle grid pattern.
Yet, just to keep you on your toes, some roadways wind randomly and others
abruptly become dirt alleyways with the front portals of small casitas set up
against them.
Again here,
as in the traditional pattern, space between structures is minimal and the
buildings butt against the streets or narrow sidewalks. And, as it was in the beginning, residences
can be quit small. Our rental, e.g., was
a one bed, one bath, 600 square foot adobe casita, which is part of a compound
of four other like-sized sun-dried brick residences. ($225K for the casita, not the compound, per
Zillow.com, if you care – remember, “mud houses on mud roads”.) A metal nameplate reading “E. Whitman &
Co, 1928” on the concrete base of one of the badly-in-need-of-tarring roads seemed
to be telling me that in Santa Fe pretty much everything is attached to a
certain past moment in time.
After World
War II returning veterans, and increasing government and other jobs locally necessitated
significant amounts of affordable housing – and led to the first real “suburban”
look in the City Different, the Casa Solana development where our
daughter-in-law and son now live. Located
in a moderately hilly area northwest of downtown, partially on the former site
of a Japanese Internment Camp, it was built by now legendary developer Alan
Stamm and follows the traditional pueblo style housing, but with prominent
garages and larger yards and setbacks than found elsewhere in town. But there is still that feeling of
architectural closeness.
As Marsha
and I walked with our son and grand-dog through their neighborhood Thanksgiving
afternoon we were noticing that although Casa Solana has more of a suburban
look, due to the street layout, and larger lots with usable yards it still had
the feel of “Santa Fe Style”. Marsha mentioned that, in our former New
England Colonial house in Connecticut after Bram grew up and no longer used our
yard as a play area for he and his friends the lawn became more of a ongoing
project rather than a piece of usable space – land for the sake of having land,
maintained to show that you can afford to have and expend your time and money
on frivolous things.
In the late
1990s Santa Fe again felt the need to strategically look at future development with
a plan that emphasized items such as affordable housing, quality of life,
sustainable growth, water conservation, and most importantly character:
“Maintain and respect Santa Fe’s unique
personality, sense of place and character…Residents have unequivocally stated
that new growth should not erode the qualities that contribute to Santa Fe’s
unique character and ambience.”
Unique
features such as placitas so that even out here in the largely unspoiled rural
high desert housing units could be built close to each other without
sacrificing privacy. Which in turn
allowed the designer of our community to preserve fifty percent of the land as
“natural open space and parks, separating and defining a unique collection of
villages.”
The homes
are stucco, not mud. The roads (and some
of the hiking trails) are paved, not dirt.
And there are spaces for kids to play, streets and alleys to weave
through, and open fields to explore – not mow.
You know – Marsha
and I kind of like this time-bound Santa Fe tradition thing.
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