HISTORIC SANTA FE FOUNDATION REGISTER APPLICATION FORM El Delirio, 660 Garcia Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico Please fill out this form and return it to the Historic Santa Fe Foundation, 545 Canyon Road, Suite 2, Santa Fe, NM 87501 or to [email protected] if you are interested in having a historic resource placed on the Register and marked with a plaque. Please call our office at (505) 983-2567 with questions. Name: Nancy Owen Lewis, Ph.D. Address: 4331 Calleja Shannon, Santa Fe, NM 87507 Phone: 505-471-5657; 505-629-3773 (cell) E-mail: [email protected] Your relationship to the resource in question: o owner o tenant o neighbor o architect o real estate agent [X]other Scholar in Residence and former director of scholar programs at the School for Advanced Research Name: Jean Schaumberg Address: 1063 Willow Way, Santa Fe, NM 87507 Phone: 505-795-1590 E-mail: [email protected] Your relationship to the resource in question: o owner o tenant o neighbor o architect o real estate agent [X] other Current member and docent and former membership associate at the School for Advanced Research If you are not the owner, please include a letter from the owner(s) giving his, her or their permission to place the resource on the Historic Santa Fe Foundation’s Register. The letter must include the signatures of all the owners. 1 Address of building/resource: This historic site is located on the campus of the School for Advanced Research at 660 Garcia Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505. The campus also includes two historic buildings located across the street at 679 and 679 ½ Garcia Street. Does the building or resource have an "historic" name? El Delirio, also known as the estate of Amelia Elizabeth and Martha White Designation: The city of Santa Fe has adopted an ordinance to protect its historic buildings. If the building is in the City of Santa Fe, please call 955-6490 to determine your building’s designation and indicate what that designation is (significant, contributing or non-contributing). The School for Advanced Research is currently listed as “non-contributing to the Downtown and Eastside Historic District,” per Lisa Roach, historic preservation division manager, City of Santa Fe. “I am surprised that this is the case,” she writes. She expressed an interest in re-examining the case and requested a copy of the HSFF Register nomination when available. State and National Registers. If the applicant’s resource is listed separately on the state or national registers, please attach a copy of the original nomination to this application. Information required in this application need not be repeated if it appears in the original nomination. Property is not listed on the state or national registers. A. Briefly descriBe the resource’s historic significance including how the property meets the primary criteria for either a building or resource. All buildings chosen for this recognition must not have been altered in a way that no longer conveys the historic associations for which they are significant. Character-defining features may include exterior, interior, and contextual elements such as gardens and open spaces. SAR’s campus is located on the White sisters’ estate, which dates back to 1923, when Amelia Elizabeth and Martha Root White, two sisters from New York City, purchased a small adobe house on a 1.5 acre lot from Benito Garcia. Located on Garcia Street, then on the southeastern edge of Santa Fe, the city line bisected their property. Obtaining additional land, their property soon expanded to eight acres. 1. Original house purchased in 1923 by Martha (l) and Elizabeth White (r) 2 To design their home, they hired artist and architect William Penhallow Henderson, who in 1925 had partnered with son-in-law John Evans and Edwin Brooks to form the Pueblo- Spanish Building Company. Constructed of adobe, their home was modeled after the mission church at Laguna Pueblo. When completed, their living room resembled a chapel, complete with a choir loft where musicians could perform. During the years that followed the White sisters transformed their dusty property into “a wonderland of terraces, archways, and gardens,” complete with a swimming pool and tennis courts—the first of their kind in Santa Fe. 2. The Whites sisters’ home, built in 1927 By William Penhallow Henderson They erected other buildings in the Spanish-Pueblo Revival style, including guest houses and lodging for staff. They would later add a horse stable, dog kennel, and billiard house. The 1913 renovation of the Palace of the Governors offered a “major kick-start” to the city’s newly christened Spanish-Pueblo Revival architecture, notes Paul Weideman (2019: 18) —a style, he explains, cemented the following decade with the construction of significant residences such as the home of Martha and Amelia Elizabeth White. Elizabeth and Martha called their estate El Delirio, “the madness,” after a bar in Seville, Spain, which had been next to a hotel where they had once stayed. While sightseeing, explained Elizabeth, we kept getting lost. “When we found El Delirio, we knew we were home.” In 1927, artist Gustave Baumann, close friend and colleague, made a humorous map documenting life at El Delirio, which by this time consisted of five buildings, a swimming pool, tennis courts, and mirador, an open structure offering a view of the compound. “We used to call it “the boathouse,” recalled estate manager, Jack Lambert. “We visualized boats coming up and down the arroyo, which sometimes ran two feet deep.” 3 3. Gustave Baumann’s 1927 map of El Delirio Elizabeth and Martha White quickly became part of a vibrant community of artists, writers, and other intellectuals fleeing industrialized America. Many wanted the more authentic life that Santa Fe seemed to offer, only to find it threatened by the forces they sought to escape. Elizabeth and Martha joined efforts to protect Pueblo land, preserve Indian art, and promote native health. They also hosted fabulous parties. Then in 1937 Martha died of cancer. After a period of mourning, life finally resumed at El Delirio. In 1947, Sylvanus Morley, newly appointed director of the School of American Research (SAR), invited his long-time friend, Elizabeth White, to serve on its Board of Managers. Elizabeth agreed, and upon her death in 1972, she left El Delirio to SAR, now the School for Advanced Research. The School, then headed by Douglas W. Schwartz, moved into the facility in 1973. In the years that followed, SAR remodeled existing buildings and added new ones to accommodate the needs of an anthropological research institution. El Delirio, now the campus of SAR, meets the three criteria listed below for inclusion in the HSFF Register of Historic Properties. As described in the sections that follow, this historic site: 1) Embodies the architecture identified with the history of Santa Fe: Spanish- Pueblo Revival Architecture. 2) Was the setting for significant events that took place historically 3) Is associated with the lives of by two people prominent in Santa Fe history— namely Amelia Elizabeth and Martha Root White. 4 B) Briefly describe how the property meets one or more of the additional criteria listed above. 1) Embodies the architecture identified with the history of Santa Fe: Pueblo- Revival Architecture. The White sisters constructed their buildings to embody Spanish-Pueblo Revival architecture. This style, notes architect Barbara Felix (2018: 31), is typified by an exterior with battered adobe walls, an undulating stepped parapeted roof line, rounded corners, earth-colored exterior stuccos, exposed wood beams over windows or doors, and a flat-roof supported by exposed or faux vigas. Windows and doors on the interior and exterior are often wood with glazing, and courtyards are common. Interiors frequently have corner fireplaces, carved wooden details, corbels and wood beams or vigas for ceilings. Although the buildings erected by the White sisters remain, they have been repurposed by SAR to meet the needs of a growing research institution. Elizabeth and Martha’s home is now the School’s administration building. Lectures and meetings are hosted in their former living room, once the site of lavish costume balls and theatrical entertainments. The smaller guest and staff houses have become resident scholar apartments. Their greenhouse has been converted into resident scholar offices. The estate manager’s home is now a seminar house, while the dog kennel currently houses SAR Press. The billiard house, complete with original billiard table, still remains as do the tennis courts. ContriButing Buildings SAR’s campus currently include eleven buildings that comprised the original El Delirio estate. Although all of these buildings retain elements of their former use, Historic Cultural Properties Inventories conducted in 2011 by Catherine Colby Consulting reveal that the most intact buildings historically are the Administration Building and the Billiard House (Post 2011: 91-92). These two buildings, as described below, appear to meet the criteria for “contributing to the city’s downtown and eastside historic districts.” White Sisters’ Home (Administration Building)—The 5,600 square-foot stucco- covered adobe structure, completed in 1927, now serves as SAR’s administration building. Meetings and lectures are hosted in the White sisters’ former living room, now the Eric E. Dobkin Board Room. Distinctive features include hand-carved Mission style doors and exposed carved beams and corbel ends. The room, with its 16-to 22-foot ceiling, sports vigas and aspen latillas, painted red, white, and black, and set herringbone style in alternating sets of four to five. The choir loft remains as does the 19th-century tin chandelier likely made in Mexico. Much of the furniture in the room—including benches, chests, wardrobes, and tables, many said to be of Spanish-colonial design—were purchased by or given to the White sisters as gifts (Kingman 1991).