Inside Adobe Walls: An Eastside beauty, with history
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12/7/2008 - 12/7/08
Here's "an authentic piece of this historic town," as the marketing materials put it, that has been nicely modernized. The parcel is in a quiet, old part of Santa Fe: on Martinez Lane, off Acequia Madre Street almost to its end at Canyon Road.
Julie Thompson, owner of the property with her husband, Cal Thompson, believes the oldest part of the house dates to 1886; those original two rooms now are two bedrooms. The history of the dwelling (recalled from papers that were discovered during renovation work and subsequently lost) includes a long ownership by one family in the early 20th century — possibly by the Martinez family for whom the street is named — and its loss in a poker game; ownership mid-century by a woman pediatrician who was apprehended in a ransom drop after kidnapping builder Allen Stamm's stepdaughter; and another extended ownership by author Donald Hamilton, who is famous for his series of Matt Helm novels and other books.
The adobe main house, 2,414 square feet on 0.26 acre, features plank-on-viga ceilings and an elegant wall finish inside, a Red Top plaster with vermiculite. The interior plaster job, and handsome brick floors that replaced aging oak floors, were done by the Thompsons as part of a substantial renovation of the buildings on the property.
Other highlights of that work are the office (215 square feet) and guest house (769 square feet). "This was Donald Hamilton's playhouse project," Julie Thompson said of the office during a recent visit to the property. "It was his Boy Scout project in 1962." Now the little, adobe building is neat and comfortable, and cozy with the new, in-floor radiant heating.
The adobe/frame guest house is thought to date to the 1930s and was Hamilton's studio, the place he sat and penned many of his suspense novels. Thompson said it was "a pit full of spiderwebs" when she first saw it. She and Cal, who is a building contractor, added a bedroom and bathroom and kitchen.
In the main house, the living room looks out onto a flagstone patio between the house and a privacy wall at the front of the property. The fireplace, designed by Julie Thompson after the California Mission style, has stone mantel pieces, a stone hearth, and, around the firebox, a band of glass mosaic tile that ties in with the backsplash in the kitchen.
The pine-floored kitchen was also part of the remodel and is now equipped with a Wolf range, Sub Zero refrigerator, and Bosch dishwasher. There is a sizeable wine cellar under the kitchen.
The master bedroom and a breakfast room adjoining the kitchen open onto garden courtyards. These outdoor-living areas were beautifully landscaped by J.P. Mallard with flagstone surfaces amid plantings of poppies, phlox, iris, ornamental grasses, pyracantha, cherry and crabapple trees, all on a 7-zone drip-irrigation system. Close to house, there's a canopy of wisteria, and a built-in pizza oven.
The property is served by a private well, and there is plenty of parking.
The house at 984 Acequia Madre is listed by Shell MacKenzie, Barker Realty, for $1.7 million.
