Historic Witter Bynner house on the market
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Photo: A path from the main building to a guest unit
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11/2/2008 - 11/2/08
This property, on E. Buena Vista Street at the corner of Old Santa Fe Trail, is one of Santa Fe's history-rich treasures. It was the home for more than four decades of the poet and essayist Witter Bynner.
The bones of the house - operated today as the Inn of the Turquoise Bear Bed & Breakfast - go back to the 1830s, according to Robert Frost, who has owned the property with his partner, Ralph Bolton, for 12 years.
Bynner purchased the house in the 1920s from Margretta Dietrich. The first of several additions made by Bynner was financed by the sale of works by a fellow writer.
"At a time when Bynner was writing for McClure's Magazine, O. Henry gave him three unpublished short stories in payment for Bynner's help getting published," Frost said. "Witter Bynner sold those to pay for the construction of a central, second-story space. He called it the O. Henry Story." Bynner's partner, Robert Nichols Hunt (the son of California architect Myron Hunt, designer of the Rose Bowl), worked with him on the various additions.
Bynner, born in 1881, is best known for The Way of Life According to Lao Tzu, his 1944 interpretation of the ancient Chinese classic the Tao te Ching, and for many translations of Chinese poetry.
Bynner and his partner, Robert Hunt, were famous for the riotous parties they hosted at their house - Ansel Adams called them "Bynner's bashes." Their guest list also included writers Willa Cather, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Robert Frost, W.H. Auden, Thornton Wilder, and Aldous Huxley; artists Willard Nash and Georgia O'Keeffe; actors Clara Bow, Rita Hayworth, and Errol Flynn; physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer; dancer/choreographer Martha Graham; and composer Igor Stravinsky.
The Igor Stravinsky Room (one of 11 bedrooms at the B&B) was built as lodging for Bynner's housekeeper, Rita Padilla, who lived there from 1926 until her death in 1963.
After Bynner himself passed in 1968, St. John's College used the building as a dormitory for 20 years. Connie Castañeda owned the historic house beginning in 1991. She did restoration work and opened the Buena Vista Art Center there for a time before putting it on the market in 1995.
Frost and Bolton also engaged in a restoration, which won city and state heritage-preservation awards in 1999 and 2000. "We did it from photos, so for example we replaced rotted viga ends with wood of varying diameters and lengths like it was before, rather than the usual all-the-same, standardized-looking way this is usually done now," Frost said.
The work included a new roof and updated electrical and plumbing systems.
Today the visitor enters at a large parking area. Chances are he will meet a giant, friendly, long-haired German shepherd named Colt while exploring the terraced garden walkways leading up to the house, which sprawls to both sides of the central, two-story structure.
The buildings are quiet - these are all adobe walls, some up to 36 inches thick - and comfortable with an informal ambience - very Santa Fe Stylish.
The front sitting room, which was Bynner's library, and the dining room have plank-on-viga ceilings painted a dark mahogany brown. The floors are Saltillo tile in the oldest part of the building, and wood and brick in the central and western sections. Ten of the 11 bedrooms are outfitted with kiva fireplaces.
Frost said the buyer of this property (on 0.92 acres) can continue its use as a bed-and-breakfast, or create a family compound, or break it into three casitas or condominiums.
The property at 342 E. Buena Vista Street is listed by Darlene Streit and Nancy Chiriboga of Santa Fe Realty Partners for $3.5 million.
