SANTA FE

Inspired by light and landscape and deeply rooted in its Pueblo Indian and Spanish past, the so-called "City Different" is a vibrant center of art, design and cuisine -- and home to that now famous Santa Fe Style.

By Dave G. Houser

I'm standing in the Plaza beneath a cobalt-blue New Mexico sky. Except to hide a horde of camera-clutching tourists, I really needn't close my eyes to imagine it is 1609 here in La Villa Real de Santa Fe de San Francisco de Assisi, known today as simply Santa Fe. I pass through the sprawl of vendors peddling Indian jewelry beneath its portico to admire the Spanish-Pueblo-style Palace of the Governors with its thick adobe walls and ceilings of split cedar latillas and hand-hewn wooden vigas.

Pinch me please - because here I am standing in the oldest public building in America. This squat fortress - now a museum - served as the capital of La Nueva Mexico, Spain's northernmost colony in the New World, well before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Held for a time by Pueblo Indians following a revolt in 1680, the Palace stood resolutely beneath the flags of Mexico from 1821 to 1846; the Confederacy for 36 tenuous days during the Civil War; the Territory of New Mexico, and in 1912, the State of New Mexico. What all of this means is that Santa Fe is the country's oldest capital city. It is as well America's second oldest city behind St. Augustine, Florida, founded in 1565.

Count me among those who savor this place they call the "City Different" because it is at once ancient and cutting edge, slick and weathered, vibrant and laid back, artistic and tatty - but above all because of its deeply rooted connection with its Pueblo Indian and Spanish colonial past. Santa Fe is a living link to those ancient civilizations of the Southwest and thus a timeless placeÉa city eternal.

Although it is sometimes unfairly referred to as an "adobe Disneyland" by the artless or uninspired, Santa Fe is not entirely without its drawbacks. A visitor entering by car will find its downtown streets, which seem to follow old wagon trails and burro paths, almost impossible to navigate. And when you eventually reach your destination you can be certain there will be no place to park. Just about everything, too, is more expensive than it should be - some say because the city has been co-opted like Aspen and Palm Beach by wealthy outsiders who have driven up prices. Indeed, there may be a few too many trust-funders wheeling about in Hummers; aging hippies; wannabe artists; psychics, and alternative healers - but that misses the point because Santa Fe is both real and imagined. So regardless of its high prices, quirks and oddballs, Santa Fe soon seduces most visitors with its soothing surfaces, clean mountain light, cool colors and romantic images.

If you stumbled a bit over the term mountain light, you can be forgiven because most visitors associate Santa Fe with the desert. Perhaps it is the architecture, which resembles and, in fact, is related via Spain to the Moorish designs of North Africa. Or maybe it's an association with the popular visages of howling coyotes, lizards and roadrunners fashioned by local craftsmen. Nonetheless, Santa Fe is very much a mountain town, occupying a dramatic niche at 7,000 feet among the rounded foothills of the Sangre de Christo Mountains of north-central New Mexico. Winter snow is common but on the other hand summer days are warm, dry and comfortable with temperatures rarely exceeding 85 degrees. Famous for its sunny skies, Santa Fe is blessed with an average 300 days of sunshine a year.

The Plaza, situated at the city's historic center (and relatively easy to find) is a perfect place to begin your exploration of Santa Fe. Exhibits at the Museum of New Mexico History in the Palace of Governors serve as a good introduction to the history of the region. One block west of the Palace, the Museum of Fine Arts houses more than 7,000 pieces of art, featuring the works of early Santa Fe and Taos masters. You'll get your first glimpses here at the paintings of Georgia O'Keeffe, the so-called Cinco Pintores (Will Shuster, Willard Nash, Fremont Ellis, Walter Mruk and Joseph Bakos), Taos artists Dorothy Brett and Nicholai Fechin and others attracted to the region by its combination of landscape, light and cultural diversity. The museum building itself is something of an architectural exhibit, being a definitive example of the Pueblo Mission Revival style. It is a reproduction of New Mexico's "Cathedral of the Desert" exhibit at the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego.

World renowned for her depictions of the high-desert flora, landscapes and volcanic landmarks around her home in nearby Abiquiu, the late Georgia Okeeffe is immortalized at the privately operated Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, situated another two blocks to the west on Johnson Street. The only museum in the United States dedicated to a woman artist, it features revolving exhibits of O'Keeffe's works from 1916 to1980.

Make your way back to the Plaza and go to the southeast corner, where San Francisco Street meets Old Santa Fe Trail. There's a plaque commemorating the terminus of the historic Santa Fe Trail, the 800-mile track between Missouri and Santa Fe that flourished from 1821 and 1880. Several inns have stood at the opposite corner through the centuries, the most recent being La Fonda, a multilevel Pueblo Mission Revival beauty designed in 1920 by I.H. Rapp - the same architect who created the Museum of Fine Arts. Depending upon the time of day, you might want to take a meal in the delightful La Plazuela restaurant in La Fonda's courtyard. Or, drop in the bar, where since the 1920s, a colorful assortment of eccentric artists, quipping writers and other literati have been holding court.

A radically different but no less imposing landmark can be seen at the other end of this block. An architectural curiosity in contrast to the surrounding adobes, the limestone French Romanesque Cathedral of St. Francis de Assisi was built in 1869 by French-born Catholic Bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy. It stands on the site of Santa Fe's first colonial church, which was destroyed in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

Opposite the Cathedral, housed in an old Pueblo Revival style post office, is the Institute of American Indian Arts. Entering through a symbolic Pueblo kiva, you'll find the largest depository of contemporary Indian art in the world. Don't miss the sculpture garden dedicated to famed Apache sculptor Allan Houser (regrettably no relation to your author), whose works are exhibited at several other sites in Santa Fe and in museums and collections internationally.

Stroll south a few blocks along Cathedral Place to see another of Bishop Lamy's buildings, the lovely Loretto Chapel. Santa Fe's first stone masonry structure, it was built in 1873 for the Sisters of Loreto, who tutored young women next door at Loreto Academy - now the Inn at Loretto - a picturesque Pueblo-style four-star hotel. The decommissioned chapel, now used for weddings and chamber music concerts, is one of the most beautiful spaces in Santa Fe. Its most revered feature is the Miraculous Staircase, a splendid spiral staircase that rises - with no visible means of support -- to the choir loft. Legend has it that a mysterious stranger built the staircase and then disappeared without taking payment from the Sisters.

If you can handle one more church, and I really urge that you do, continue your walk south along the Old Santa Fe Trail, crossing the seasonal Santa Fe River (where there's a shady park along the banks to pause and relax), to San Miguel Mission Church. This is Santa Fe's oldest church (some say it's the oldest continuously used church in the country) and it served the Tlaxcalan Indians who came as servants from Mexico with Spanish colonists in 1609. On display inside are rare images of Christ on deer and buffalo hides. Not surprisingly you'll also find nearby the Oldest House in the U.S., an earthen structure believed to have been built between 1250 and 1300. Take note that one of Santa Fe's favorite and most venerable restaurants, the Pink Adobe, has been serving succulent steaks and Southwestern specialties in a 300-year-old old adobe adjacent the Mission for more than 50 years. The Dragon Bar here is one of the city's liveliest waterholes.

While you're in the Barrio Analco neighborhood south of the river you should definitely have a look at the New Mexico State Capitol building. Conforming perfectly to the state's non-conformist image, the capitol building, like no other in the country (or world from what I've seen), is perfectly circular in form. It is shaped as a ceremonial Pueblo kiva though some say it more resembles a water tank. Either way it is a fitting and familiar symbol for New Mexico where Indians comprise 10 per cent of the population and ranching still remains one of the state's leading industries.

Best take your car or one of the city's regularly scheduled buses for your next round of discovery, on Museum Hill, where an amazing ensemble of four world-class museums will guarantee you many hours of contented browsing. Nearly everyone's favorite is the Museum of International Folk Art, which brilliantly displays a collection of more than 100,000 objects from well over a hundred countries. Situated across a nicely landscaped plaza, the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture features a huge collection of pre-historic pots, baskets, jewelry and textiles. Navajo Indian culture and exhibits of traditional and contemporary Southwestern art is the focus of the compact Wheelright Museum of the American Indian. Last but not least, and, in fact, the newest museum on the Hill is the Museum of Spanish Colonial Arts, which serves to preserve and promote the Spanish influence on New Mexico's art. Here you'll particularly want to view the delicately carved santos or sacred objects, and colorful retalbos of patron saints such as Our Lady of Guadalupe

Chances are you'll come to Santa Fe to shop for art. Millions do each year and for good reason because this small city of hardly more that 60,000 citizens is the third largest art market in the United States, generating more than $200 million in sales annually, most of it through the city's 267 galleries. One in six residents of Santa Fe describe themselves as artists. The scale and quality of the art scene here continues to boggle my mind and I've visited the city regularly for nearly 15 years.

While you'll find art from every age and discipline (and price point), I'd say the majority of Santa Fe's galleries present either traditional New Mexican/Southwestern arts, crafts and furniture, or contemporary Indian and cowboy art.

There are galleries everywhere in the city but the greatest concentration of them is to be found strewn out along Canyon Road, southeast of the city center. A route of commerce since ancient times, Pueblo Indians used it crossing the Sangre de Christo Mountains to trade at Pecos Pueblo (now a national historic park). In the 1920s and 1930s an influx of Bohemian artists and writers settled along the road and soon established the city's first art galleries in poor adobes that today are worth millions. Depending upon your level of interest, you could spend a few hours or a few days perusing Canyon Road's galleries (and shops and restaurants as well). It is definitely the place to see and be seen on Friday evenings during the summer and pre-Christmas season when thousands participate in the Canyon Road Art Walks. Most artists open their studios to visitors and there's plenty of snacks and street entertainment. This is Santa Fe at its very best.

For certain, the visual arts have largely led to Santa Fe's international notoriety but the performing arts are a vital part of the city's cultural scene as well. Especially the renowned Santa Fe Opera. The 600 member company is regarded as one of the nation's best and has mounted more than 130 operas, including nine world premiers, since its opening in 1957. The setting is what distinguishes it from most others. Nestled on a hillside next to Tesuque Pueblo, a few kilometers north of the city, the 2,128-seat open-air theater commands panoramic views of the surrounding mountains. Five operas are presented each summer season, running from June through August. Seats are hard to come by but standing room tickets are usually available. Santa Fe also boasts a highly regarded symphony, an orchestra, an annual chamber music festival, a Spanish dance company and thriving repertory and community theatres.

In the Hispanic tradition, festivals and fiestas are an integral part of life in Santa Fe, so if you like noisy crowds and parties come in September, the week after Labor Day, for the annual Fiesta, a four-day street party celebrating Spanish colonial culture. Perhaps the city's most popular events are the Spanish and Indian Markets in July and August, respectively, where buyers from the world over converge to consider the works of the best traditional and contemporary artisans of the Southwest. The Indian Market is the nation's largest Native American art event. Summer festivities draw the big crowds but it is Santa Fe's Christmas celebration that steals the hearts of many visitors. Traditional lanterns or farolitos twinkle everywhere and there are religious reenactments and caroling. It is traditional on Christmas day to visit nearby Indian pueblos to view winter dances celebrating the buffalo and deer.

I've touched here and there on a few of Santa Fe's lodging possibilities but there are so many exquisite inns and hotels that space simply won't permit reviewing them all. So I'll jot down just a couple of my favorites, leaving you the ultimate pleasure of choosing your own nesting spot should you decide to visit Santa Fe (and what's to decide, really?). I mentioned both La Fonda and the Inn at Loretto - which are good choices if you want to be in the busy thick of things and right in the heart of the old city. My preference, however, is for a place more intimate so I generally choose to stay at La Posada de Santa Fe Resort & Spa. Set on six landscaped acres just three blocks from the Plaza, this plush and peaceful compound is built around an 1882 Victorian mansion which houses some guest rooms, a romantic bar and lounge and Fuego Restaurant, universally considered one the city's best tables. I usually bed down in the one of the resort's elegantly rustic and cozy casitas or cottagesÉpreferably one near the lavish Avanyu Spa.

Farther out, but close by the State Capitol and San Miguel Mission, is perhaps the city's most desirous small inn, the Inn of The Five Graces. Here, a series of interconnected courtyards hides 22 guest suites, each individually decorated with hand-carved furniture, tile mosaics, dazzling Tibetan kilims and other treasures of the East. It is a place of gentle indulgence that you will never want to leave.

Originally established in 1851 as a retreat for the omnipresent Bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy, the aptly named Bishop's Lodge is a rustic luxury resort set on more than 450 forested acres about three miles north of Santa Fe. Fresh from a multi-million dollar renovation to its 83 rooms and the addition of the ShaNah Spa (complete with an authentic Indian sweat lodge and massage tipi), the Lodge will serve as your ideal retreat from the frenetic doings of the city, just as it was for Bishop Lamy. The Lodge is a perfect choice for families with children as there are organized activities such as hiking, horseback riding, swimming and tennis.

With all of the activities that Santa Fe offers you may not find the time to venture very far beyond the City Different, but if you do there's plenty of interest in every direction. There's the equally artsy enclave of Taos, about an hour's drive north - unless you take the so-called High Road through a string of traditional Hispanic villages such as Chimayo and Truchas which will result in so many stops you might not make Taos in the same day. If you do, however, you must see Taos Pueblo with its stacked architecture massed like a Cubist painting. Occupied for more than a thousand years, it is listed as both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a National Historic Landmark.