Santa Fe: the Dysfunctional Museum City

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

All you people who love to come to Santa Fe to revel in our oh so charming adobe streetscapes, here’s a sorry tale of what we residents endure to fulfill your fantasies.  Did you know that a bunch of early 20th century Anglo aesthetes cooked up this look that’s as traditional as frozen pizza in Helsinki?  I’ve been thinking of writing this story for some time, but the world kept getting in the way.   Lately, however, my water and power bills have been arriving with slick little inserts designed to browbeat me into taking fewer showers—and those with a dribble of water.  I should also equip my lamps with bulbs whose wattage is totally inadequate for people who actually like to read.  Know what?  I am not inclined to discomfit myself.

Let it be known that I tried to be a super good citizen of the modern world, and I got defeated at every turn by the city of Santa Fe.

Here We Are 

The photo above is not a beauty-is-passé canvas by an up and coming artist.  It’s not a charming example of randomness or spontaneity as art.  It’s not even what I would call organic, exactly, but it shows pretty well how my house grew over the past century plus.  Each roof segment surrounded by a little wall or parapet represents one more addition to the original modest (to say the least) adobe cube thrown up by a very poor man.  When I say adobe, I don’t mean an elegant two course job.  I mean one course (or thickness) and often supplemented with pumice stone or the hollow tiles that preceded cinder block construction.  When I bought this place, it was a wreck, a fixer-upper’s fixer upper—and cheap, which was important because it needed work.  Oh boy, did it need work!  And thus began the tragicomedy of attempting to go green in Santa Fe. 

Renovation being a necessity, not a choice, I decided I wanted to end up with a water-and-energy stingy aka  green house.  Not a glass house for floriculture.  Not a house slopped in green paint. But this:  a house that would use water and energy as efficiently as possible, given the givens.    As for the facade, major surgery was necessary, but that was nixed by authorities, as were all my other dreams.  So the front of the house looks like a jungle now, as you can see, mostly xeric plants that need very little water and very little care, the latter my idea of the perfect garden. What you can’t see through the foliage isn’t worth seeing.

The Bottleneck

My problem (and the problem for all residents of Santa Fe) is the Historic Commission, which decides what you can or can’t do to new or older houses.  The Commission pores over floor plans and elevations and refuses to approve those that don’t place windows a full four feet from any corner of the structure.  There's hardly a spot in Santa Fe without a wonderful view, but view-embracing expanses of glass also fail the test, because the original Spanish colonists obviously didn’t have picture windows.  Of course, most of them didn’t have glass windows either, to say nothing of indoor plumbing.  So I guess we should be grateful.  Sort of.  Or laugh.  And order windows with phony dividers, which can mysteriously disappear.  Money wasted, but c’est la vie.  

So I’m writing this piece because I think that Santa Fe’s building and design codes should be changed for everyone—and for the health of the planet, but I must confess that I got into this fix by stupidity and  insufficient research.  I knew nothing of the Historic Commission when I bought this property.  I especially didn’t know that the structure  I was buying appears on mysterious but very important maps as a “contributing” structure.  That means it represents Santa Fe at some “authentic” phase of its history. 

I’ve met people who tell me they fought to keep their homes from designation as “contributing.”   Unfortunately, the family that built and lived in my place for three generations wouldn’t have had the funds to renovate creatively even if they’d wanted to.  Thus, the fact that the poor man’s home they couldn’t even afford to keep livable had been frozen in time didn’t affect them, especially since this buyer was so ignorant.  Result: not only did I have to conform to the constricted official notion of the "Santa Fe style," I had to respect the integrity and external appearance of the existing structure, which believe me—and I’ve delved into histories of New Mexico architecture—is of no significance whatsoever. Gulp!

The Bucket Brigade

What did I want to do?  I wanted to move the water heater from one end of the house to the middle, where the old structure met the wing I miraculously got permission to add.  No go.  Result: several gallons of water are lost before the water runs hot enough for a shower in the master bath.  Actually, I’m supposed to collect this otherwise wasted water in buckets, which must then be schlepped outside to water plants with.  We’re talking many many buckets here—and buckets of water are heavy.  Very heavy.  Now  I’m not happy about wasting water, but the city also refused to let me install a gray water system.   All of that slowly warming water, along with sink water and water from clothes washed in appropriate detergents, could have been put to good purpose without the efforts of this bucket brigade of one.

To continue the water horror story, the roof: I wanted that chopped up roof configuration you saw in the photo above to be replaced by a single surface that would drain into an underground  cistern, from which I would pump water for my plants.  Oh no!  said the Historic Commission.  That would destroy the integrity of the original building pattern.  Of course, you can’t see the roof  top from the street.  No one, except the occupants of the occasional police helicopter, would know I’d destroyed this precious evidence of architectural history.   Too bad, said the Historic Commission, unconcerned about the problems that would inevitably ensue.    Canales, the traditional drain spouts, like gargoyles without the fancy sculpture, are notorious for clogging with ice and backing up water from snow melt, which means leakage into ceilings is common.   Even when the water from ordinary rain flows without hindrance, according to the Historic Commission, it’s supposed to fall into—yes! you guessed it!—rain barrels.  So I’m supposed to ladle water out of a dozen rain barrels to water my garden instead of dipping a portable pump into one nice efficient cistern.  How do you think I feel about that?  Uncooperative. I mean I have more things to do with my life than toting buckets of water here and there.  There's also the mosquito problem.  West Nile has reached New Mexico.

Powerlessness

Now let’s move to the power problem.  I wanted to install photovoltaic panels on my roof to supply electricity for my purposes and to sell to PNM, should there be any surplus.  Now, when I started renovating my house, there were still some big high old fashioned TV antennae visible in my neighborhood.  The Historic Commission had not objected.  As usual in American cities, the wires strung from pole to pole were and are an eyesore.  They are also permitted, even though sixteenth century Santa Fe wasn’t exactly wired.   The new little TV satellite dishes are also just fine, too.  I have one.   But generating electricity through panels that would not be visible from most perspectives available to anyone standing or driving on the street?  No way.  Helicopter pilots might see them, I suppose.  Or hawks. 

The bottom line is this: I was willing to add considerably to the cost of renovating my house in order to be a good citizen of a world that needs us to conserve water and energy because I thought I was the right thing to do, but I was frustrated at every turn.  Now I’m supposed to squint when I read?  I’m supposed to do without a decent shower when I need one?  Omigod I had a shower this morning!  I’ll have to sleep sweaty.  No way. 

The solution?  We can continue to have a beautiful city without forcing sixteenth century debilities on us, which means we can probably have an even more beautiful and tourist-pleasing city, given the perennial poverty of this backwater of the Spanish empire.  Change the regs, Santa Fe.  I’ll have those solar panels on my roof in no time and the aesthetics of my neighborhood will not be destroyed.  Can we please have a functional city?  Or must we continue to live in a ludicrous Disneyland, a museum ?

Better yet, anyone for a revolution?

PS.  I read of cities where people can't dry clothes on outdoor clotheslines.  Santa Fe isn't the only city that makes it difficult to conserve energy and water.

  


 
 

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