Designing beautiful, functional homes for northern New Mexico is no walk in the park—or, if you prefer, on the mesa. Venerable local traditions, tricky topography, and the sad proliferation of “faux Southwestern” make the path from paper to plaster a rocky one.

Fortunately, Santa Fe architect Beverley Spears has done her homework. In 1985, about 10 years into her New Mexico experience, she studied and photographed old adobe homes in villages across the northern part of the state. Her book, American Adobes (Clear Light Publishers, 1986), documents the evolution of northern New Mexico style.

Authentic style
It’s truly rare for a time and a people to spawn an original architectural style. But colonial New Mexicans went one better: various towns put their own spin on common elements such as dormers, porches, and portal columns. It’s actually possible to speak of Truchas brackets or Santa Cruz Valley pediments.

“To design authentic homes in the vernacular of northern New Mexico, you need to study traditional architectural forms. You have to understand why the oldest buildings—the convents, mission churches, and pueblos—are focused on light and space,” says Spears, an award-winning member of the American Institute of Architects who has designed more than 40 homes over the course of her career.

Her nine-member firm, Spears Architects, established in 1981, comprises an amazing breadth of expertise, including urban design, landscape architecture, historic preservation, adaptive reuse, site planning, master planning, documentation, and surveys. Spears clearly applies her collective wisdom to every project, regardless of its nature, to arrive at a comprehensive design solution.

 

 

 

 

Spears Architects’ avowed design philosophy is “to create environments that are spatially rich, articulated by sunlight and shadow, and comfortable and welcoming. The design must respect its surroundings.” Spears gives form to this philosophy through clean lines, light and airy interiors, and inviting spaces for outdoor living.

The New Mexico landscape is a capricious player in the design process. Like a beautiful diva, it’s compelling, aloof, and fragile: “Take me or leave me,” it seems to say. Spears is happy to accommodate the diva’s demands. “The land is precious,” she says. “Architecture must respect and respond to our exquisite natural surroundings.”

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