Santa Fe's oldest corral, built by historic cowboy, gets restoration

Sep. 11—For decades, Santa Fe's oldest corral appeared abandoned as it became overrun with vegetation and fell into disrepair.

Now that the overgrown chamisa and broken glass has been cleared and the old wooden fence posts have been restored, the corral built by cowboy Jack Lambert sits proudly at the School for Advanced Research.

"It just seemed like a pity to see it fall down and fall away," said the organization's president, Michael Brown.

The corral was a part of an estate that belonged to the wealthy East Coast socialites Amelia and Martha White and is located just feet away from Lambert's home, where he lived with his wife, Marge Lambert.

Though historians haven't been able to pinpoint exactly when the corral was built, they believe it was shortly after Lambert was hired to oversee the White sisters' estate in 1929.

Brown said the small restored enclosure was used as a holding pen and was a part of a larger set of corrals that are no longer standing.

Planning for the project began roughly two years ago when Larry Good, an architect who lived just up the road from the corral, offered to foot the cost of the restoration and bring it back to life.

"For 15 years I've been driving past the old Jack Lambert corrals, watching them sort of start falling apart," Good said in an interview. "The street was named Camino Corollas after those corrals, and I felt that they were an important little part of history."

Though Good said he did not want to reveal the cost of the restoration, he said it could not have been done without the generosity of Bonifacio "Bonnie" Armijo, the owner of the local construction company Building Adventures Unlimited.

"He did the restoration for no profit, and so he deserves credit too," Good said. "Bonnie's quite a Santa Fean; he just loves the city, and he thought it was good idea to restore those corrals, too."

Before the restoration could begin, the institute was required to conduct a historical study and present its findings to the city's Historic Districts Review Board.

The study led to the discovery of old photos of the corrals from the 1950s and an aerial photo of the original enclosure from 1936.

"[The study] provided us a lot of useful information about the corral that helped us make a stronger case to the historical board that it was worthy of conservation, and they enthusiastically supported our proposal," Brown said.

Brown said the pandemic delayed this process, but the project was finally completed in May.

The Lamberts were illustrious figures in Santa Fe and were named Santa Fe Living Treasures in 1988 for being "the kind of memorable people who gave Santa Fe its special character."

Jack Lambert was born on a ranch in Oklahoma in 1898. He left home at just 14 to become a cowboy. Over the years, Lambert worked as a cowpuncher in Utah, Wyoming and Nevada and worked for the 101 Ranch in Oklahoma.

At age 19, he made his way to Santa Fe, where he eventually put down roots. Lambert helped manage and reconstruct the Bishop's Lodge, where he ran a dude ranch taking wealthy explorers into the high country of Truchas.

Marge Lambert, born in 1908, was a trailblazer in her own right. She worked as an archaeologist during a time when women were not welcome in the field. Despite the discrimination she faced, Marge Lambert went on to lead excavations at the Tecolote ruins near Las Vegas, N.M., and served as the archaeology curator at the Museum of New Mexico.

The couple met at a dance in a boxcar at Seton Village, while Marge Lambert was a graduate student at the University of New Mexico. After the couple married in 1950, the White sisters gave them the property where their house and the corral were located.

In 1977, the couple sold the property to the School for Advanced Research and lived there until their deaths. The home is now used as a residence for scholar fellows who conduct research at the institute.