Historic Agnes Sims home on market

Paul Weideman | The New Mexican

2/1/2009 - 2/1/09

This pretty, single-level adobe is one of four units in the Beaufort condominiums — a cluster of residences named after an artist's dog.

The artist was Agnes Sims, a transplant from Pennsylvania who gained renown for her paintings and mixed-media and sculptural works, and entertained many of Santa Fe's other creative people at her Canyon Road residence beginning in 1949.

After her death in 1990, another artist, Douglas Atwill, lived in the house at 606-A Canyon Road. He is now a neighbor at 604 Canyon; the current residents of the historic Sims place are Guillermo and Susan Duron. The couple, working with designer Billy Halsted and contractor Fritz Staver, recently completed a remodel. The project involved the addition of a bedroom and bathroom (now the master suite) and a substantial expansion of the kitchen.

Most of the floors in the house, which now totals about 1,719 square feet, are brick. The walls sport a beautiful finish of hard-troweled plaster. The ceilings are of the traditional, planks-on-vigas type, all white-painted. The abode is heated by gas-fired, water baseboard units, and it's cooled by freestanding, ductless air-conditioning units in the bedrooms and in the kitchen/dining area.

The living room has one of three kiva fireplaces - the others are in the bedrooms - and built-in bookshelves. French doors open onto a large patio area with a big, old apple tree in its center. The outdoor plants here and in other landscaped areas around the home are on a drip-irrigation system.

The new master bathroom features granite countertops and a tile shower. The other baño is outfitted with a bathtub/shower, and a Runtal towel-warmer radiator. The Durons have the second bedroom set up as a guest room and media room; the room is quite bright with its line of clerestory windows above and likely functioned as studio space for Sims.

The updated kitchen has wood floors, granite tops, Wolf range and oven, and a Sub Zero refrigerator paneled to match the handsome cabinets by Dave Gallegos of Dave's Cabinets, Española.

There is a cornerstone outside engraved ACS 1949. The "ACS" is for Agnes C. Sims and the year was a most significant one for her. In 1949 she joined the Women Artists Exhibiting Group along with Dorothy Morang, Olive Rush, and Eugenie Shonnard, among others; and in that year she published the book San Cristobal Petroglyphs, featuring her block-print images. Artworks by Sims are included in the permanent collection of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas.

The house at 606-A Canyon Road is listed by Gary R. Hall and Meleah Artley, Karen Walker Real Estate, for $1,595,000. The Realtors mentioned that the property holds RAC zoning, so the buyer could keep it residential or adapt it for gallery use.