Preservation Projects Manager Mara Saxer departing HSFF to begin a new adventure

Mara Saxer joined the Historic Santa Fe Foundation in 2015. For over seven years, Mara was a dedicated part of the Foundation’s team, first as the Preservation Specialist and later as our Preservation Projects Manager. Last Thursday was Mara’s last day with us– now she is seizing the opportunity to travel. We are excited for her to embark on this new journey and want to acknowledge the extent of her work at El Zaguán.

Mara’s contributions stretched far beyond the space constraints of a weekly email or blog post. She took on the restoration of the Garcia House as well as the “Sisyphusian task of maintaining the entrance of HSFF’s El Zaguán.” Mara has also been an adroit mentor and resource to our preservation trades interns, contributor to the El Zaguán Master Plan and fifth edition of Old Santa Fe Today, and manager of HSFF’s preservation easement program. Mara possesses invaluable skills, talents, and experiences in preservation, and we are lucky she shared them with us to the Foundation’s great benefit.

Sincere thanks Mara, for all you have done for the Foundation and the care of El Zaguán.

Email hanna@historicsantafe.org to send your well wishes to Mara, and we will pass along your messages.

Recap of HSFF's 2022 Annual Garden Party & Members' Meeting

By Hanna Churchwell

Each summer Historic Santa Fe Foundation (HSFF) invites members to the Annual Garden Party and Members’ Meeting. This year, reflecting HSFF’s goal of further opening the doors of El Zaguán to the public, we invited non-members to attend the meeting. Due to overwhelming interest, HSFF made the decision to host our Annual Garden Party and Meeting on both Wednesday, August 17 and Thursday, August 18. HSFF Executive Director Pete Warzel opened this year’s meeting with a recap of our ongoing programs and projects. The list was extensive; however, Pete delivered his recap of HSFF’s past year efficiently and thoroughly. Highlights from the recap include:

• The continuation of our Preservation Trades Internships. Three interns undertook projects at El Zaguán, Randall Davey, and Las Golondrinas and assisted Foundation staff with educational programming for the Youth Conservation Corps.
  

• Through our Mac Watson Fellow program, students were hired to research and write nominations to add properties to our Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation.
  

• The long-awaited 5th edition of Old Santa Fe Today hit the shelves of El Zaguán the first week of August. HSFF’s Deputy Director Melanie McWhorter took over this portion of the recap, to provide an overview of the behind the scenes work that took place to create the 5th edition and to update the attendees on the progress HSFF has made in the development of a corresponding app and maps.
  

• HSFF organized multiple tours, events, excursions all geared to the cultural and architectural history of the area. Highlights included a trip to Cordova to see Nuevo Mexico Profundo’s altar screen project and an excursion, overnight, to the Saint Joseph Apache Mission on the Mescalero Reservation.

This year’s guest lecturer, BC Rimbeaux, Mayordomo of Acequia de la Muralla– one of the last of the functioning acequias in Santa Fe, delivered a thoughtful and educational presentation on the history, significance, and contemporary state of acequias and water culture in Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico. Rimbeaux’s speech gave guests the perfect primer for the unveiling of HSFF’s acequia interpretive exhibit, which nods to the now defunct Canyon Road Community Ditch and was built utilizing the original stone from El Zaguan’s portion of the long-gone acequia. Pete Warzel turned the headgate for the inaugural demonstration of the interpretative exhibit, showing how water from the acequia may be diverted to irrigate the land of water right holders.

Thank you all for your continued support of Historic Santa Fe Foundation. HSFF staff continues to work on important projects as does our Board of Directors. We look forward to presenting even more exciting updates at next year’s Annual Garden Party and Members’ Meeting.

Old Santa Fe Today Book Update - June 2020

La Capilla de San Ysidro Labrador, image by OSFT photographer Simone Frances

An Old Santa Fe Today, Fifth Edition Book Update by Melanie McWhorter, June 2020

Historic Santa Fe Foundation launched a campaign to reproduce the book Old Santa Fe Today in 2018. The book has been published in four editions thus far with the first one written by the former El Zaguán caretaker and resident Sylvia Loomis. This newly revised and updated edition has been a desire of staff and board for many years. We were happy when Dr. Audra Bellmore made a visit with her UNM class that year to look at El Zaguán as a living interpretation space. She became very invested in our organization as it is aligned with her interests, expertise, and the teaching program at UNM. Bellmore has since joined the Education, Research, and Archives Committee headed by Board Director Dr. Tim Maxwell and commenced and nearly completed the massive task of researching each property, and writing new citations for 95+ properties listed on HSFF’s Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation (Register). This listing was included, along with a few other locations, was the subject of the four previous editions of Old Santa Fe Today and will be the sole focus of the newest version. We have partnered with the Musuem of New Mexio Press and their designer David Skolkin to produce and publish the fifth edition of this book. The book is scheduled for 2021.

Images from left to right: La Capilla de San Ysidro Labrador, Manderfield Mausoleum exterior, Manderfield Mausoleum interior with stained glass. Image by OSFT photographer Simone Frances

We submitted the proposal to MNM Press in late 2018 and set the budget of approximately $40,000 to cover, among other line items, the printing, photography, a map insert, and app. The book has elements for research, and others used touring some of the neighborhoods of Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico. Bellmore’s entries are being edited by Dr. Nancy Owen Lewis and Mac Watson. Lewis is HSFF board director, a scholar-in-residence at the School for Advanced Research and has authored or co-authored numerous books. Watson has worked architectural conservation as a licensed contractor and principal of Watson Conserves, LLC and former HSFF Board Chair. We are delighted for this expertise and wealth of knowledge in our volunteer editing team.

We then launched the fundraising campaign. Executive Director Pete Warzel’s expertise in the business world has proved a valuable skill in the nonprofit fundraising. Many of the Register homeowners and property owners are those who value Santa Fe’s history and are dedicated to the preservation of our unique aesthetic and varied historical architectural styles. Warzel made a list of all properties on the Register and started to reach out to the owners or businesses that occupy the properties. We had a magnificent response from these people who were more than willing to sponsor the reproducing of this book. We also announced in our printed newsletter and the membership donated to the book to donors and sponsors so far are Avalon Trust, Bishops Lodge Development, El Rancho de las Golondrinas, Enterprise Bank, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Inn of the Five Graces, La Fonda on the Plaza, Liz Cale and Santa Fe Properties, New Mexico Bank & Trust, San Miguel Chapel, Sunwest Construction, Victory Contemporary, and Wolf Corporation. More information on the business sponsors and individual donors here.

We hired the contract photographer Simone Frances to create new photographs of all the buildings. Frances was referred by another of Bellmore’s graduate student at UNM. Frances started the collaborative process of photographing privately-owned homes in early in 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic has put a halt on the photography, but she was able to cross off many of the public buildings with a few of those illustrated here. We hope to restart photography in the next few weeks.

We have also partnered with attorney and state senator Matthew McQueen to review the legal documents. Thanks to McQueen for all his assistance.

We experienced a delay in fundraising efforts and some who committed to donate cannot sponsor due to current financial concerns. Warzel applied for a New Mexico Humanities Council (NMHC) grant for those nonprofits whose programs were not funded because of the pandemic. We are honored to be awarded $7,000 from NMHC through funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. These moneys will support the initial budget for OSFT. Funds will be used to produce the map and application for tours of the Register properties and may expand into a more comprehensive resource for education and preservation in NM.

Finally, HSFF Board Chair Ken Stilwell with the board’s approval, started the Old Santa Fe Today publishing committee in June 2020. The committee is comprised of HSFF staff and OSFT project manager Melanie McWhorter, volunteers Lewis and Watson, writer Bellmore, and Stilwell and will meet regularly to make decisions about the book and its contents. We are still relatively on schedule despite the lockdown delays and hope to have the book on hand in late 2021.

Galisteo Sala, Image by OSFT photographer Simone Frances

Powder House, Image by OSFT photographer Simone Frances

OLD SANTA FE TODAY - THE NEW EDITION UPDATE

Covers above: 1991 fourth edition, 1972 third edition, 1966 first edition, and 1982 third edition.

Old Santa Fe Today New Edition Update
HSFF Executive Director Pete Warzel

As most of you know, the Historic Santa Fe Foundation began a project in 2019 to completely revise our iconic publication, Old Santa Fe Today, in a fifth edition. The fourth edition was printed in 1991 with much needed to be addressed in that lapsed time.

The new edition will have the complete inventory of properties on the HSFF Historic Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation, now at a total of 98, and one or two more addition likely before we go to press (currently being researched for nomination by our Mac Watson Fellow Katie Dix). New research and writing for each entry is being done by Audra Bellmore, PhD., Associate Professor in the Center for Southwest Research and the Curator of the John Gaw Meem Archives of Southwestern Architecture, on a volunteer basis. It is an incredible commitment to this foundation by Dr. Bellmore, and the staff and Board of Directors are extremely grateful. New color photography is contracted with Simone Frances, an architectural photographer based in New Mexico.

The Museum of New Mexico Press will design, produce, market and distribute the new book, and as you most likely know, has been printing elegant books focused on art, archeology and history of the state and region since 1951. (Órale! Lowrider, The Santa Fe Scottish Rite Temple, Painted Reflections, Los Luceros, etc.) The quality of these books and others in the MNMP catalogue is exceptional.

I had occasion to pick up a copy of a now, 24-year-old book, The National Trust Guide to Santa Fe. Interesting and mostly well done. But, it is a guidebook. There is very good, well-researched background in the introductory chapters, but essentially it is a walking tour by street address in various sections of the city. (It is good to see an entry for the Rios wood lot in the Canyon Road tour section, and the drawing of the proposed towers for the Cathedral from 1885 is incredibly disturbing – it would be interesting to see what the Historic Districts Review Board would do with that if proposed today). OSFT is not that, but could be utilized in such a way. The photographs of the properties will be stunning, with interior shots of many of the properties that are never seen. The narrative on each will be much more extensive than allowed in a guidebook format. Yet, with the detailed map insert, and the proposed mobile phone app, the book certainly will be conducive to using for a walk, or drive tour.

OSFT is a standard of research, used, in its past editions, by writers and academics exploring the history and architectural significance of Santa Fe. Indeed, Richard Harris, the author of the National Trust guide referred to above, cites the 4th edition of OSFT as a source. Paul Weideman, who launched his wonderful book at our sala in December 2019, Architecture Santa Fe: A Guidebook, likewise used Old Santa Fe Today as reference. That is telling.

We have a budget of $40,000 to meet our subvention with the Museum of New Mexico Press, as well as the contracted photography, map-making and app production. To date we have received $12,300 from very generous individuals and an additional $20,000 from businesses that housed in the Register properties, or simply committed and concerned about the architectural and cultural history of the Santa Fe area: Victory Contemporary (gallery – in the Delgado House), Inn of the Five Graces (Barrio de Analco and the Tudesqui House), Bishop’s Lodge (Lamy Chapel), Santa Fe Properties (José Alarid House), The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum (Bergere House), La Fonda on the Plaza, Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust (the Brooks House), and Wolf Corporation (Marybeth and John Wolf – the Hinojos House). New Mexico Bank and Trust, Avalon Trust, Sunwest Construction, and Dave Feldt, Realtor, have also generously donated funds to help complete this project, although not housed in one of our Register buildings. Through this exceptional help from businesses and individuals we have reached 81% of our funding and budget goal. The finish line is near.

A revision of Old Santa Fe Today has been a goal of this Foundation since I came here six years ago. It is brought up in conversations with preservation organizations, writers, and members of HSFF, continuously, in the hope that we would redo with a new edition. The 4th edition, from 1991, is outdated, not only regarding the number of properties on our Register, but as to information regarding many of the properties included. Thirty years is long enough to wait for a new version.

So, we are here, and moving rapidly, and all – Board of Directors, staff, associates, partners, publisher, writer, and photographer – are so looking forward to this elegant presentation of our history. We hope you can help us with this project, and also that you thoroughly enjoy the final product, due to be available in 2021. It will be a wonderful addition to the living library of Santa Fe’s architectural and cultural history.

Read more about the reprint on the Old Santa Fe Today page on our website.