Two houses, two worlds...

We had a busy morning driving around the town (click here to see - Morning in Taos ). At this point, we needed some rest and recharge. So we quickly cooked lunch and gobbled it :) Now we were ready to explore more...

 

Our plans for the afternoon included visiting two museums, and we started from La Hacienda de los Martínez, the old house which was built in 1804. The hacienda is one of the few remaining northern New Mexico later Spanish Colonial period "Great Houses" (casas mayor) in the American Southwest. Built by don Severino Martínez and family, this fortress-like building with its massive adobe walls, located along the Rio Pueblo, 2 miles of the Taos Plaza, became not only the Martínez family home, but also an important trade center. During the late Spanish Colonial period, it was the last stop above the terminus of El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, of "Royal Road of the Interior Land".

Moving from Abiquiu, NM, in 1803, don Severino Martínez (formerly Martin) and his wife Maria del Carmel Santistevan Martínez raised six children in the Hacienda. The eldest Martínez son was the famous Padre Antonio Martínez who was a dynamic social reformer who created the first co-educational school in New Mexico and brought the first printing press to Taos. In addition to his merchant and trade activities, Severino Martínez was also the Alcalde (mayor) of Taos and managed the family's extensive ranching and farming operations on their original five square miles of land.

The Hacienda measures approx 95 x 200 feet. Walls are 2 foot thick adobe block. Exterior is covered with traditional mud plaster. Interior walls are white washed with tierra blanca (micaceous clay and wheat paste). Exterior walls have no windows and most of the rooms are not connected and accessible only from the courtyards (placitas). It had been designed to serve as a refuge for family and neighbors against possible Indian raids (no attacks against the structure were ever recorded).

As the primary living area for the Martínez family, the Sala would have served as a living room, dining room, classroom and even bedroom for the family. Furniture was at a premium on the Spanish frontier in the early 1800s, thus the sparse look of the room. The simple daybed or couch in this room would have been a truly extravagant piece of furniture in Severino's day as most people would have slept on skins, blankets or simple home-made mattresses on the floor.

The shallow corner fireplaces were the only sources of heat for the rooms and would have doubled occasionally for cooking. Like most of the floors throughout the Hacienda, the floor in this room was composed of a mixture of high clay content mud, straw, wood ash and ox or cattle blood. This mixture provided a hard, durable waterproof floor that did not give off dust.

All timber had to be cut, hauled and adzed into usable lumber with only minimal hand tools. The large chests are made from single boards, some over 16" across.

Although there is no documentary evidence that this room was ever used as a chapel (La Capilla), because of ornate and labor intensive corbels supporting the roof beams, it may have been more significant that other rooms in the house. It also was common for wealthier families in Spanish Colonial New Mexico to set aside a room in their home as a chapel. There the family not only could gather for daily prayer, but also had a room where a visiting priest could say mass or perform other religious rituals to benefit the household.

The chapel would have had a small altar and possibly a reredo (an altar screen) and a number of santos or religious images. The room also might have had a few simple bancos (benches) to seat people while at prayer or attending a service. In the early days of Spanish colonization, tallow candles were virtually the only source of safe lighting available for inside homes. These candles were especially important for the family altars and capillas. Originally, tallow was made from the rendered hard fat of buffalo. It was an essential trade item obtained from the Plains Indians or from the early Spanish or Pueblo buffalo hunting expeditions east of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. As Spanish herds of cattle, sheep and horses increased the people of northern New Mexico became less dependent on the Indians for a supply of tallow.

The granary has three large bins for the storage of grains. Good storage and production were essential to survival and constituted a daily pursuit. Wheat, barley and corn were important agricultural products of the Taos Valley. Wheat and barley, introduced to New Mexico by the Spanish, grew very well in the high, cool Taos Valley. Taos was such an ideal location for growing wheat that during Severino Martínez' lifetime, Taos was considered the "Bread Basket" of New Mexico. Barley appears to have been used primarily for animal feed rather than for human consumption.

 

The trade room demonstrates the great variety of items which would have been bartered, bought or sold at the Hacienda. Severino Martínez was an important merchant in the early days of Taos. Throughout Martínez' life, there was little hard cash to be found in New Mexico. Barter was the economic mechanism for nearly all exchange of goods in the province. Until Mexican Independence in 1821, New Mexico was kept in a virtual state of peanage by the merchants in Mexico who terribly undervalued the products of New Mexico. Shortly after 1821, the balance changed, American traders were bringing goods along the Santa Fe Trail.

Iron was a precious commodity in frontier Taos. Severino Martínez accounted in his will for every nail and bit of iron he owned. Since he didn't mention any blacksmithing tools suggests there was no blacksmith shop here until his son, Pasquel, took over the family ranch and business.

 

It was an interesting tour for sure... We knew that life on the frontier wasn't all honey... but still. The Martínez family weren't just farmers or peasants. They were pillars of society, and they were wealthy. And their life was so simple and so hard. They had so little, and they earned every bit of food or happiness through hard labor. We turned speechless as we left the Hacienda and headed to our next stop.

In 1923, renowned Russian-American artist Nicolai Fechin, his wife, Alexandra, and their daughter, Eya, emigrated from Russia to New York City. In 1926, at the invitation of Taos patroness Mabel Dodge Luhan and the encouragement of artist John Young-Hunter, the Fechin family traveled to Taos and spent the summer at Mabel's place. Then, so Fechin could have the privacy he desired to paint, the family decided it was time for their own home in Taos. In 1927, they acquired the property of Dr. J.J. Bergmans and his wife, Wilhelmina Harkink-Bergmans, who were returning to their native Holland. The Fechins moved into the house until March of 1928 when they concluded the two-story, eight-room, cube-shaped symmetrical adobe failed to satisfy their needs functionally or aesthetically, and they would have to remodel.

For the next five years, the Fechin family labored to make the home theirs. Nicolai planned, and the multi-lingual Alexandra communicated directions to Miguel and Pedro Mirabal, masons from the Taos Pueblo, and Joe Martinez. Nicolai worked day and night. The Fechins' workmen removed all interior, non-load bearing walls and reconfigured the space. They doubled the size of the front porch and added a series of rooms that projected from what was once the central cube.

​​The construction coincided with the arrival of electricity in Taos in 1928 and a modern sewage system that arrived in 1930. Electricity made it possible for Nicolai to carve and build at night while he painted during the day. The electric stove, oven, and refrigerator were the first in town! With the new sewage system, Fechin went to work installing three new bathrooms.

The final result was a 3,545 square-foot, asymmetrical, adobe Pueblo and Mission Revival house with twenty-four-inch walls. The Fechins created a wonderful home and a masterpiece of Southwest architecture. The spaces within the home were sympathetic to Nicolai's art collections and his carvings of sculpture, furniture, and architectural ornament.

Despite the massiveness of the walls, Fechin carefully planned window openings. Their locations and shapes were essential to accommodate the home's scenic surroundings, including the Sangre de Cristo Mountains under a high sky. He introduced intense light, which bathed textured "terra bayeta" walls and richly carved wood, into the interior through lancet and arched bay windows of rolled and beveled glass.

 

​Working in his father's workshop as a youth provided training for Nicolai as a carver. He absorbed various influences from his Russian heritage and his encounters with Native American and Hispanic cultures. He imported sugar pine and poplar from the NW, which was easier to carve and mostly knot-free to allow for his intricate carvings. First, he adzed all the wood, creating beautiful undulating surfaces. Then, armed with mallet and chisel, he began carving columns, stair rails, vigas, doors, and furniture. The wood was then tinted a uniform color with a thinned stain to allow the natural grain to show still. Lastly, each piece was hand waxed to a beautiful sheen.  

With the local metalsmith, he fashioned light fixtures, door pulls, and hinges. Nicolai was also a coppersmith: The kitchen's copper light fixtures and copper hood are of his own making. By 1933, Nicolai and Alexandra, with their workmen, had created one of the most exciting homes in Taos. Eya stated, "A Russian house evolved out of New Mexico mud."​​

Unfortunately, the family's joy was short-lived. The couple experienced marital problems, and Nicolai, with his daughter Eya, left their home in Taos. Alexandra assumed the responsibility of maintaining the property. She lived in the house until 1946. The house became too much for her to care for at that time, so she closed the doors and moved into Fechin's studio. The house remained untouched for 30 years until Eya returned to New Mexico in 1977, when she was appointed conservator and began the process of restoring the home to its former glory.

​In 1979, the Fechin House was placed on the National Registry of Historic Places and the State of NM Registered Cultural Properties. Living in the studio, Eya created the Fechin Institute and maintained active exhibition and education programs until her death in November 2002.

Fechin's story and the history of the house are taken from this site: Fechin House, history

Such a contrast... These two houses couldn't be more different. But they are both part of Taos history and worth visiting. We were so glad that we did it at the same time, it really helped to see how life in New Mexico had changed and to see different sides of existence here. We were a bit overwhelmed by the experience and needed some time to process what we just had seen. So we headed back downtown and walked the streets and surprisingly they didn't look the same as before. I guess knowing the past has changed our perception of the present too. But...the present is another story and I'll tell it tomorrow...

Click here to see what we found while wandering around - Evening in Taos.

The pictures were taken on December 08, 2024.