Welcome to
Paul and Layne's New Home in
Santa Fe, New Mexico

Most likely you have found your way here either because you are a friend of Layne and Paul's, or you are a subscriber to one of their publications, or you are participating in a joint venture to help them purchase their very first home. However you found your way here, we're glad you dropped by and we hope you enjoy the tour.

What you will see below is a little information about the very interesting location in which they are building, called Aldea de Santa Fe, meaning "little village of Santa Fe", and photographs of the building site, views from the site and construction.The image above is a sunset view from our lot and from what will be our back porch, or as it is called here, portal (pronounced por-tall). Happily, nothing will ever be built to obstruct this view.

A little about Northern New Mexico architecture

Northern New Mexico's distinctive architecture reflects the diversity of cultures that have left their imprint on the region. The first people in the area were the ancestral Anasazi, who built stone and mud homes at the bottom of canyons and inside caves. Pueblo-style adobe architecture evolved and became the basis for traditional New Mexican homes; sun-dried clay bricks mixed with grass for strength, mud-mortared, and covered with additional protective layers of mud. Roofs are supported by a network of vigas -- long beams whose ends protrude through the outer facades -- and latillas, smaller stripped branches layered between the vigas. Other adapted Pueblo architectural elements include plastered adobe-brick kiva fireplaces, bancos (adobe benches that protrude from walls), and nichos (small indentations within a wall in which religious icons are placed). These adobe homes are characterized by flat roofs and soft, rounded contours.

Spaniards wedded many elements to Pueblo style, such as portals (porches held up with posts, often running the length of a home) and enclosed patios, as well as the simple, dramatic sculptural shapes of Spanish mission arches and bell towers. They also brought elements from the Moorish architecture found in southern Spain; heavy wooden doors and elaborate corbels -- carved wooden supports for the vertical posts.

With the opening of the Santa Fe Trail in 1821 and later the 1860s gold boom, both of which brought more Anglo settlers, came the next wave of building. New arrivals contributed architectural elements such as neo-Grecian and Victorian influences popular in the middle part of the United States at the time. Distinguishing features of what came to be known as Territorial-style architecture can be seen today; they include brick facades and cornices as well as porches, often placed on the second story. They also include millwork on doors and wood trim around windows and doorways, double-hung windows, and Victorian bric-a-brac.

There are also high mountain pitched-roof style homes. Early settlers resorted to pitched thatch roofs on Pueblo Style adobe homes to shed the snow. Today, pitched-roof homes are covered by modern metal raised-ridge roofing in rust reds to turquoise blues.

Our home, as you will see, is a traditional Pueblo style home with Moorish arches inside.

Finally putting down roots after 30 years!

We began creating this house inwardly first through prayer, meditation and visualization. This is a reduced architectural elevation of the front of the house which faces east.

The architectural drawings are covered with spiritual symbols in each room that have special meaning for us. These were buried in the ground in the actual rooms the night before the slab was poured.

This is a view of our lot with chalklines sketching out the perimeter of the house. This is the view from the street looking northwest.

These chalklines are where the western facing portal will be off the master bedroom.

These trenches will have rebar placed in them and then filled with concrete. They will then be the part of the foundation that is called stem walls.

The guest room is at the lowest corner of the house, under Layne's office. This is the beginning of digging the very deep hole where the room will be.

This is a view of the stem walls for the guest room.

This shows how deep in the earth the guest room is, with the western edge of the house rising in steps up the hill

The white structure in the middle right of the picture is the foundation of our house. This view gives you a sense of how it is situated in the neighborhood and the multiple levels of the house.



These are styrofoam forms into which concrete is poured to form the stem walls. The space between the walls is then filled with dirt, leveled and tamped down before pouring the concrete slab.

This is a typical Aldea scene of the setting sun casting the shadow of a Yucca plant on an adobe wall.



This is another common sight just after sunset over the Jemez mountains. If you look really closely, you will see a sliver of new moon just under the large dark cloud in the middle upper third of this image.

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