"The old houses and the old village were unique. They remain so where no modern highways have cut through, robbed them of the charm of primitive simplicity, and destroyed their narrow lanes that meandered as if to touch every doorstep in them."* (From Las Placitas, Historical Facts and Legends by Lou Sage Batchen). Undoubtedly I’m a romantic but I like a house with history. It doesn’t have to be "historic," able to be put on the National Historic Register, that sort of thing, but a house that has been a home to lots of people. A place where people have been born, lived and died, a place with stories—that seems to me to bestow a gift of warmth, security and interest to a place. Jean-Marie Aguerre, an anthropologist whose work has been in sustainable architecture and agriculture, has given me a little history and how her house fits into it. These words are mostly hers, edited for this column.
The current village of Las Placitas de San Antonio de las Huertas was occupied by sixteen of twenty-one Las Huertas grant families relocated from the original village of San Jose in 1823. Each family member staked out his location, known as a placita, within the area that is now known as the village of Las Placitas. During the 1840’s, Las Placitas de San Antonio de las Huertas became a life-supporting community for its families. The Spanish villagers honored the saints, farmed, grazed sheep and goats in the common land of Las Huertas canyon and in the mountain meadows on the north slope of the Sandias during the summer and on grasslands below in the winter, and mined lead and gold locally. The villagers hunted deer, bear, and small mammals, and gathered wild edible plants to supplement their crops and to provide medicines. The people of San Felipe Pueblo traded the villagers pottery and woven materials in exchange for grain, fruit, and grape stock. All of that plus punche, a tobacco, was bartered to the Faraon Apache for hides, buffalo meat, and sometimes captives, who were adopted as household servants.
The home at 13 Camino del Campo Santo is said to have been constructed in the late 1860’s. The original structure was a stable built by two Baldinado brothers who lived in separate houses on the family compound. Typical of village construction at that time, the original building material is "aldogon", earthen slabs cut from the ground and moved into place. As effective as adobe, "aldogon" does not require forms cut from straight wood (tall straight timbers had already been depleted by the 1860’s in the Middle Rio Grande Valley) as does adobe to shape earthen bricks. The stable housed Baldinado animals—mostly sheep—until villagers’ mountain grazing lands were confiscated by the United States Forest Reserves (1892-1906). After that, the stable was turned into a winery for family wine production. Eventually, the family compound was split up and the stable was sold.
How it grew: In the 1940’s the great room and large room upstairs (originally used as an artist’s studio) were added. When domestic water became available in the village in 1946, the original front portal was enclosed becoming the kitchen and storage room. Plumbing was added in the late 1940’s; electricity in 1952. The 2001 restoration was a collaboration of homeowner and adobe architect Paul McHenry, Jr. Artists and craftsmen expert with traditional building techniques were chosen to implement the plan where only environmentally sensitive materials were used and conservation of water and power were important. The Pueblo fireplace upstairs (originally the hay loft) was restored by Mexican artist and craftsman Arturo Diaz as were the plaster walls and kitchen cabinets, among other things. The Hopi style masonry fireplace in the living room is the creation of award winning Santa Fe mason Alan Reeves. It is highly efficient, burns hot thoroughly combusting the fuel, absorbing the heat into the massive masonry resulting in comfortable radiant heat and clean air for the environment. Vents to the outside were placed to heat ‘grow’ boxes for fresh winter produce. Seven layers of old roofs were removed and a new one installed. The original dirt roof was left intact over various rooms, and a new foundation was trenched around the entire building. The house was then framed with recycled metal studs, newspaper cellulose insulation and other protective papers which allow the earth building to breath, and then layers of exterior plaster were applied. The portals, courtyard walls, and planting beds were all rebuilt, and every effort was made to respect the cultural history of the village by not gentrifying the home and setting. I would like to show you this treasure in Placitas Village. Please call for more details and an appointment.