Los Luceros
On Good Friday the Santa Fe Botanical Garden arranged a visit to Los Luceros, the former estate of Mary Cabot Wheelwright. It's a 148 acre farm on the river, north of Santa Fe, on the way to Taos. The day we visited was a glorious spring day and dozens and dozens of pink crabapples were in full bloom.
Mary Cabot Wheelwright was a scion of old Boston society who came west to adventure and explore as a "dude" in the 1920s. She became a founding part of the community of easterners that eventually established Santa Fe as a hub of the arts a hundred years ago.
Wheelwright also worked hard to preserve indigenous culture, establishing the Wheelwright museum and spending months with her lifelong friend, a Navajo medicine man, Hosteen Klah, recording hours and hours of his songs on wax cylinders to preserve the sounds and history of a culture that was being lost.
Her estate is right on the banks of the Rio Grande. The spot had a long history of intermittent indigenous use (ancient people were too wise to build a permanent pueblo on bottomlands where the river flooded all the time), then as a Spanish land grant in the 1600s, a ranch owned by the Luceros family in the 1800s, and eventually as a wealthy easterner's dream home. Mary Cabot Wheelwright lived there until the late 1950s.
When she first arrived in 1923 she added on to an existing centuries-old building and built a Southern Gothic balconied grand house out of mud. Adobe, actually. The walls are 4 feet thick, the balconies wrap all the way around and it is an oddly beautiful mix of mismatched architecture styles and practicality.
We toured the inside with our docent, Marie, who was a wonderful guide. She was so engaging, and full of history. In the 1980s, long after the house had been closed up after Wheelwright's death, Marie convinced the then-owners who were in foreclosure to let her live in the abandoned house and take care of it.
She lived there in the empty great house for two years and loved it. In the years since, the farm has been owned, bought, sold, foreclosed, bought for investment, used as a film studio by Robert Redford who converted outbuildings into dorms for film crews, then finally given to the state, who now owns it but has no real funds to maintain an aging property.
But preservation work is being done by non profit groups, and the state is taking an interest for the first time. The beautiful original gardens near the house need major restoration.
There are several buildings on the property, including a tiny adobe chapel that we went inside. It was exquisite in its simplicity and quiet calm. I told Jim it is where I am going to get married next time.
And there are some small guest houses, and of course farm buildings. All of it is surrounded by snow capped mountains; the views are stunning in all directions. I can see why Wheelwright wanted to build her home here, even in a floodplain in a state that was the definition of the middle of nowhere.
The simplest shed was a delight to see, flanked by a crabapple in bloom.
There are acres and acres of apple orchard fruit trees surrounding the house and buildings -- thousands of trees. Los Luceros holds an apple festival in fall. But they were not yet in bloom in April. Instead it was the ornamental crabapples that stole the show the day we were there.
We walked down to the river. We ambled beneath towering gnarly cottonwoods, which were ghostly in April without their leaves yet, but they lined the road to the river and in summer it would be shady and lovely to walk under them. Big old shaggy things.
And then there it was. The Rio Grande. Flowing swiftly and rushing over a short wall. We heard it before we saw it.
It gurgled. It rippled. I don't know what was more heart-stopping this day, the glory of the pink crabapples in spring or the unique sound of rushing water in New Mexico. I made a video recording the flow and the sound, it was such a rare treat.
Los Luceros was a pleasant surprise. Of course part of the enchantment was the lovely weather the day we visited, and having a picnic lunch on the grounds with a fellow gardener on the tour, and the charm of our docent. But the history is worth learning and the grounds are nice to walk, and the state doesn't even realize yet what a remarkable asset it owns.
Here's an article on the Los Luceros history if you're interested.
Mary Cabot Wheelwright was a scion of old Boston society who came west to adventure and explore as a "dude" in the 1920s. She became a founding part of the community of easterners that eventually established Santa Fe as a hub of the arts a hundred years ago.
Wheelwright also worked hard to preserve indigenous culture, establishing the Wheelwright museum and spending months with her lifelong friend, a Navajo medicine man, Hosteen Klah, recording hours and hours of his songs on wax cylinders to preserve the sounds and history of a culture that was being lost.
Her estate is right on the banks of the Rio Grande. The spot had a long history of intermittent indigenous use (ancient people were too wise to build a permanent pueblo on bottomlands where the river flooded all the time), then as a Spanish land grant in the 1600s, a ranch owned by the Luceros family in the 1800s, and eventually as a wealthy easterner's dream home. Mary Cabot Wheelwright lived there until the late 1950s.
When she first arrived in 1923 she added on to an existing centuries-old building and built a Southern Gothic balconied grand house out of mud. Adobe, actually. The walls are 4 feet thick, the balconies wrap all the way around and it is an oddly beautiful mix of mismatched architecture styles and practicality.
We toured the inside with our docent, Marie, who was a wonderful guide. She was so engaging, and full of history. In the 1980s, long after the house had been closed up after Wheelwright's death, Marie convinced the then-owners who were in foreclosure to let her live in the abandoned house and take care of it.
She lived there in the empty great house for two years and loved it. In the years since, the farm has been owned, bought, sold, foreclosed, bought for investment, used as a film studio by Robert Redford who converted outbuildings into dorms for film crews, then finally given to the state, who now owns it but has no real funds to maintain an aging property.
But preservation work is being done by non profit groups, and the state is taking an interest for the first time. The beautiful original gardens near the house need major restoration.
There are several buildings on the property, including a tiny adobe chapel that we went inside. It was exquisite in its simplicity and quiet calm. I told Jim it is where I am going to get married next time.
And there are some small guest houses, and of course farm buildings. All of it is surrounded by snow capped mountains; the views are stunning in all directions. I can see why Wheelwright wanted to build her home here, even in a floodplain in a state that was the definition of the middle of nowhere.
The simplest shed was a delight to see, flanked by a crabapple in bloom.
There are acres and acres of apple orchard fruit trees surrounding the house and buildings -- thousands of trees. Los Luceros holds an apple festival in fall. But they were not yet in bloom in April. Instead it was the ornamental crabapples that stole the show the day we were there.
We walked down to the river. We ambled beneath towering gnarly cottonwoods, which were ghostly in April without their leaves yet, but they lined the road to the river and in summer it would be shady and lovely to walk under them. Big old shaggy things.
And then there it was. The Rio Grande. Flowing swiftly and rushing over a short wall. We heard it before we saw it.
It gurgled. It rippled. I don't know what was more heart-stopping this day, the glory of the pink crabapples in spring or the unique sound of rushing water in New Mexico. I made a video recording the flow and the sound, it was such a rare treat.
Los Luceros was a pleasant surprise. Of course part of the enchantment was the lovely weather the day we visited, and having a picnic lunch on the grounds with a fellow gardener on the tour, and the charm of our docent. But the history is worth learning and the grounds are nice to walk, and the state doesn't even realize yet what a remarkable asset it owns.
Here's an article on the Los Luceros history if you're interested.
Comments