New book, exhibit seek to preserve history of Santa Fe's buildings

Nov. 7—Simone Frances well remembers the day she photographed La Capilla de San Ysidro Labrador.

The sun had appeared in a smoke-filled sky, striking the stones of the 1928 chapel known locally as Lopez Chapel.

"I shot that location at least three times, but that day the sky was so orange because of the fires and the low clouds," said the Santa Fe photographer whose exhibit, Properties Worthy of Preservation: Photographs from Old Santa Fe Today (5th Edition), opened Friday at El Zaguán on Canyon Road.

The collection and book are the culmination of nearly three years of work documenting the most valuable properties listed as worthy of preservation by the Historic Santa Fe Foundation.

The project serves to honor Santa Fe's history and important figures through its culturally significant properties, among them churches, government buildings and homes.

The dramatic lighting that details the chapel's handmade bricks tells the story of Lorenzo Lopez, who used rocks gathered from his property and mud from the nearby acequia to construct it. The story is one of 96 properties detailed in the foundation's most recent exhibit. It is the foundation's fifth release, designed to offer both residents and tourists a glimpse into the lives that built these historic structures and ultimately, Santa Fe. The first edition was released in 1966.

"People see historic plaques on walls, but they don't really understand what they mean or what the register is," said author Audra Bellmore. "This is an opportunity to publicize these sites which tell deep stories, the really complicated and full stories that are representative of New Mexico history in general. So many of these go through many generations. They have Indigenous connections, connections to Spanish settlers, Euro-American settlements, French Catholic influences, members of the archaeology and art colonies who also came in and how they got overlaid into these properties."

Bellmore, a University of New Mexico professor who teaches preservation and museum studies, had met the staff of the HSFF on a class field trip and was immediately drawn into the project. She later met Frances at the Center for Southwest Research and the pair began work on the project in February 2020. A month into it, they knew collaboration would be next to impossible, and so they each winged it on their own.

With Frances' photography background in architecture, she relied on her experience and intuition to document the details of each house, commercial building or public space. The work was a departure from her norm, but Frances said she learned about the history of her hometown and its people.

"I'm usually questioning how public environments function to sustain and reiterate their meaning through our participation," she said. "What is the impact of architecture on our social being?"

It's likely why her favorite shots are in buildings created for public gatherings, like the Spanish Moorish Revival-style Scottish Rite Temple, constructed from 1911 to 1912. Partial to long exposures, Frances photographed the exterior and interior of the building, which offers an 80-foot stage, 404 seats and 97 backdrops featuring 37 scenes.

Getting access to homes during the pandemic was as challenging as deciding how to photograph a structure whose story she wasn't yet familiar with. Frances photographed the Randall Davey House on Upper Canyon Road, one of her favorites in the collection, while on crutches and on pain medication, having broken her foot while photographing another historic property in Kansas.

"A hidden 'speakeasy' sits behind the drawing room, built during the Prohibition period," writes Bellmore. "Davey also painted murals of exotic nude women inside second wife Isobel's upstairs dressing room."

Such intimate details serve to tell the stories of these homes' occupants, said foundation deputy director Melanie McWhorter.

"She tells the stories of the people who lived there and the connections they may have had — the Jewish businessmen in the late 1800s; the people who came and built after the Territorial Period; the Santa Fe Trail; the San Miguel Chapel; the associated people who built these structures and who lived in them," McWhorter said.

The book offers a series of eight maps and is organized by neighborhood so that residents and guests can follow along on walking or driving tours to observe the building of Santa Fe from as early as the 1700s.

"The project itself is a coffee table book, a touring guide, and since Audra is a scholar, it also has an academic aspect to it," McWhorter said, adding that Bellmore carefully considered adding details such as architectural materials used, styles of architecture and "big characters in the development of Santa Fe."

McWhorter said the project seeks to preserve both the buildings and history in a town that is changing rapidly.

"A building doesn't mean a lot in itself," Bellmore said. "You might say, 'Oh, isn't that charming?' or 'Isn't that cute?' But there's a deeper story that these houses tell. It's not the building so much in itself than really the fabric of that building and how it has been used over time. That's what's really important — the social history and the people who lived there and their changes and why those changes occurred. Santa Fe is a complicated story, and those sights are interesting for their types, drawing from different periods and styles."

McWhorter said the foundation hopes to develop an accompanying app before the end of the year. The app, she said, will include additional photographs that aren't in the book, audio and visual elements and Spanish-language content.

Published by the Museum of New Mexico Press in Santa Fe, the book was paid for by donors and grants, allowing individual book sales of $40 to fund the foundation, McWhorter said.

Bellmore said the book speaks to both residents and tourists.

"For the people who live in Santa Fe, it gives them an opportunity to understand their neighborhoods," Bellmore said. "For the tourists, it gives them a reason to understand the town a little better and an opportunity to veer off the tourism-driven Plaza. There's way more to Santa Fe than walking around the Plaza."