SAR and the Pandemic: Life on the Screen

The White sisters’ home at El Delirio, now the administration building at the School for Advanced Research. Photo by Katrina Lasko, #3095, Courtesy of the School for Advanced Research

We present here a second in a series look at what our collaborative organizations were faced with during the COVID lockdown. The campus of the School for Advanced Research was added to our Register of Historic Properties Worthy of Preservation during the health crisis. It is designated on the Register as El Delirio, the historic name given the former estate of the White Sisters. Michael Brown, President of SAR, writes about the changes in his organization’s approach forced by the health crisis, and the time taken to make improvements to the buildings and property at the campus, during the isolation. — Pete Warzel 

SAR and the Pandemic: Life on the Screen
By Michael F. Brown, President, School for Advanced Research

As many HSFF readers will know, the School for Advanced Research has steadily moved over its 114-year history from specialization in New World archaeology to a mission that encompasses public education, scholarship in anthropology and related disciplines, support for research and creativity in the Indigenous arts of the Southwest, and stewardship of our historic campus, recently recognized by the HSFF as “worthy of preservation.”

This broad palette of activities makes SAR’s elevator pitch suitable for a ride to a skyscraper’s penthouse. Yet it proved to be an asset when much of the United States went into lock-down in March 2020. Several key elements of SAR’s programs had to be suspended—most notably, our member field trips, public lectures, and tours of the Indian Arts Research Center. Happily, we were able to support our on-campus resident scholars and Native American artist fellows, although their programs were obliged to shift online. Prior to 2020, we had begun to live-stream many of our public lectures and artist talks. In the face of the state’s stay-at-home order, SAR staff members made a quick pivot to online-only events. 

Lest I make this shift sound easy, remember that initially we were limited by our home equipment, as were our speakers and audience members. High-quality webcams and microphones were scarce for months. Even when we solved these technical challenges, Santa Fe’s broadband often buckled under the weight of thousands of simultaneous Zoom sessions and streamed entertainment.

To our astonishment and delight, however, our audiences began to grow, reaching all fifty states and nineteen countries to date. Since March 2020, over three thousand individuals previously unknown to us have participated in more than sixty events, along with hundreds of longtime SAR members. In short, the pandemic forced us to interrupt the face-to-face relationship with our local members in favor of online communication with a broader and more diverse global audience.

We also took advantage of our public closing to complete long-overdue campus improvements: roof and masonry repairs, new handrails on our walkways, and fresh plaster on nearly every building and wall. 

What’s next? We’re easing back into our offices and planning for a full public opening by late summer. The main challenge going forward will be to maintain our ongoing commitment to local members, whom we sorely miss, without losing a new national and international audience interested in SAR’s lectures and classes. One way or another—on-screen or in-person at our Garcia Street campus—we invite you to join us in the emerging post-pandemic world.

Sunmount Sanatorium - A History and Case for Preservation

Recent publicity, including an article in last Friday’s Pasatiempo, has accompanied a sale of the historic Sunmount Sanatorium property off of Camino del Monte Sol. Now known as the Immaculate Heart of Mary Retreat Center, the property is being pursued by two potential buyers with divergent uses proposed.

Given the potential re-utilization of the property we thought it necessary to here emphasize the historic importance of the property, its residents, and its architecture, in the hope that whoever buyer surfaces, the historic fabric of the built environment will take precedence in their plans.

Below, Nancy Owen Lewis, Board Director at HSFF and an expert on the history of the property through her extensive research for her book Chasing the Cure in New Mexico: Tuberculosis and the Quest for Health, gives us a short history of the importance of this place.  — Pete Warzel

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Patients at Sunmount Sanatorium "chase the cure" on the breezeway of this Spanish Pueblo revival-style building constructed in 1914 by Rapp & Rapp. (Photos is from the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives, John Gaw Meem Photograph Collection, image no. 23523).

The Immaculate Heart of Mary Retreat and Conference Center, currently on the market by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, contains the former Sunmount Sanatorium, which operated from 1906-1937. More specifically, the sale includes the Santa Maria building, which was constructed in 1920. Although not part of the sale, the building next door, now a Carmelite monastery, was built in 1914. TB sanatoriums were once a major industry in NM, with 70 in operation during the course of its history. TB was the major cause of death and before the discovery of streptomycin in the 1940s, there was no known cure, but a high and dry climate was considered healing.

Not only is Sunmount the most intact historic sanatorium in New Mexico, complete with sleeping porches, a dining room, and living room little changed from the original, it is one of the earliest examples of Pueblo Revival style architecture in New Mexico. Dr. Frank Mera, director, advertised it as “The Sanatorium Different,” it attracted numerous artists, writers, and other luminaries, who would change the cultural landscape of Santa Fe. They included

1)    Writers: Alice Corbin Henderson (poet); Janet Lewis, Yvor Winters
2)    Lynn Riggs, Oklahoma playwright, who wrote “Green Grow the Lilacs” while at Sunmount (it became the basis of the musical “Oklahoma.”)
3)    Artists Arthur Musgrave and Datus Myers
4)     Silversmith Frank Patania
5)    Dorothy McKibbin (gatekeeper Manhattan project)
6)    Katherine Stinson (aviator)
7)    John Gaw Meem.  Fascinated by the Franciscan missions he saw on sanatorium field trips, he decided to give up engineering and become an architect.  Using a cottage at Sunmount as his first studio, he would change the face of New Mexico architecture.

Sunmount Salon
Fresh air, rest, nourishing food, and maintaining a positive attitude were the cornerstone of treatment. To foster the latter, Sunmount sponsored lectures by archaeologist Sylvanus Morley; poetry readings by Vachel Lindsay, Carl Sandburg, and Witter Bynner; and concerts.  Others would be invited to attend. This mingling of “artistically-minded patients, local residents and visiting writers became known as the “Sunmount Salon.”  During the 1920s, Sunmount, in many respects, became the cultural hub of Santa Fe.

Recommendation:  That this historic building, as described above, and its surrounding landscape be preserved.

Written by Nancy Owen Lewis

El Rancho de las Golondrinas and the Pandemic: Learning to Pivot and Finding New Strength

As the world begins to wake up from a fifteen-month nightmare, and Santa Fe begins to fill with visitors again, we wanted to take a look at organizations we like to collaborate with, to see what projects and progress was made by them during the disorientation of lock down. I asked Dan Goodman, Museum Director of El Rancho de las Golondrinas, to give us insight into what went on at this living history museum when visitors were not allowed. Dan and las Golondrinas’ Development Director Jackie Camborde, wrote this fine piece in response. Thanks to both for their good work in La Cienega and in these words. — Pete Warzel

Find out more about their upcoming activities on their website.

El Rancho de las Golondrinas and the Pandemic: Learning to Pivot and Finding New Strength
Jackie Camborde and Daniel Goodman, El Rancho de las Golondrinas

There is really no way to fully describe 2020. Never in any of our lifetimes have we had such a strange, isolated and distant year. El Rancho de las Golondrinas was closed from June to September, and all our usual festival weekends and other special events were cancelled. The throng of locals and tourists that usually arrive all summer long were unable to visit the museum. No field trips or classrooms visited last year. Our volunteers were sidelined from their passions of teaching and demonstrating the ways of the past. It almost seemed like an impossible time to keep going…but we found our way.

Cultural institutions by their very nature have an obligation to serve their community.  We knew that if we could mobilize hundreds of volunteers for Harvest festival, surely we could mobilize them for the situation at hand.  Our volunteers got to work making masks for essential workers. Our staff, Board, volunteers and neighbors came together for a cleanup of Los Pinos Road, something that we have now made an annual event. We donated almost a ton of clothing and household goods via a community fund drive. We worked together with Youthworks, the Food Depot and Santa Fe County to distribute free grab and go meals and kids’ hands-on history kits in our parking lot every week. At last count we had distributed over 24,000 prepared meals and food packages from our parking lot. We grew produce based on the needs of the Food Depot and have donated thousands of pounds of fresh vegetables to them for those in need. Why so much activity and outreach during a pandemic? Because like everyone else we have a passion for this community, this land, and New Mexico.

This was also a good opportunity for the Museum to tackle some important projects, especially when it comes to Historic Preservation. Our operations crew got caught up with maintenance of our historic buildings. We made repairs to our acequias and take care of invasive species around our many ponds and wetlands. We built out the educational material on our website and expanded our volunteer resource material including information they shared with guests about the historic objects on display in our buildings. Is there more work to do?  Of course!  With 500 acres, 34 historic buildings, educational programs, animals and artifacts to manage and maintain, there is never a shortage of work!  But we are happy to be the stewards of this significant cultural property.

One program we developed to keep Las Golondrinas in people’s minds and hearts is the Las Golondrinas Live Sessions. This series of lectures, demonstrations and projects is being shown live on our Facebook page and can be viewed on our YouTube Channel at any time. Some of the topics covered in the sessions include lectures on New Mexico history and adobe preservation; demonstrations of weaving, bread making and fire building; a tour of the Molino Grande and how-to projects such as tin stamping and other traditional crafts. The Live Sessions are more than demonstrations, they are a repository of historic lifeways in New Mexico!

As we prepare to open on June 2nd for the 2021 season, we know that the most important thing we can do is keep our visitors safe. We have retrofitted our admissions booths with Plexiglass barriers, installed refillable water stations and incorporated a very rigorous cleaning schedule into our daily activities. All of our employees have taken the state Covid online training and Las Golondrinas is listed as a Covid-safe Institution.

One big change this year will be our festival season. We have canceled our June and July events, and are hopeful that our first event will be the Santa Fe Wine Festival on August 14 and 15.  We will be requiring all guests at festivals to make reservations to attend, including our members, who can always attend for free. Members will get a 24-hour priority on reservations for all festivals – a great reason to join us this year!

While the pandemic derailed our usual operations, many good things came out of this time. For one thing, we kept all our fulltime staff employed and working, something we are very proud of as an institution.  We learned that our employees can make the most of a difficult situation. We learned that we can be a bigger force for good in our La Cienega community. We know that we can find ways to reach our members, visitors and friends, even if they can’t visit the museum. None of us ever want to go through another year like 2020, but we feel lucky to know that above all else, Las Golondrinas will continue to survive and thrive.

Jackie Camborde, Director of Development
Daniel Goodman, Museum Director
El Rancho de las Golondrinas Living History Museum
https://golondrinas.org/