Not so long ago, a lonely traveler might have trudged along this trail through the hot desierto, burro in tow. He spies a compound in the distance. Outside its encircling wall nature rules. But step through the gate and it’s another world, a human hive of commerce and conversation, a welcoming shelter from brush and sun, wind and wilderness, bite and sting. “It’s a big surprise and quite wonderful,” muses Ramona Sakiestewa, who was so charmed by the Mexican villas of yesteryear that she and her husband, architect Andrew Merriell, designed their own mini-compound on storied Old Santa Fe Trail, a major thoroughfare today just as it was 150 years ago under Mexican rule.

Ramona and Andy still find bits of broken china on the property from time to time, and the ghosts of wagon ruts embedded in the hard clay soil, dusty vestiges of the Trail when it was an 800-mile trade route between Franklin, Missouri, and the Mexican outpost of La Villa Real de Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis—now less of a mouthful as Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s somehow fitting that the couple’s home should be a nexus of cultural and economic exchange, a place where people gather.

Andy’s firm, Hilferty & Associates, designs exhibits for museums nationwide. Ramona is an internationally renowned Hopi textile artist whose tapestries and blanket designs interpret Native symbology in contemporary ways. Geometric shapes offset swirls and swoops, while bold primary colors play against mere whispers of hues, design themes echoed throughout Ramona and Andy’s compound.

The two met while working on the National Museum of the American Indian, the latest Smithsonian museum, slated to open on the national mall in September. Andy did the master plan for the permanent exhibits. As Native consultant to the architectural team, Ramona designed several interior features of the museum and advised on every Native cultural reference.

 

 

Fortunately, Ramona and Andy’s strong individual design sensibilities were in complete harmony during the yearlong home building process. When the couple initially compared sketches of their respective dream homes, they were pleased to discover they were virtually identical. Both wanted an intimate, private home for just the two of them. Both wanted a separate place for grown children, guests, and visiting business clients. And both wanted to work at home but not in the home.

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