Hasta la Vista

vital signs

Y. A. and Leonora Paloheimo resurrected the soul of El Rancho de las Golondrinas outside Santa Fe, turning it into a stunning example of renovated and replicated classic New Mexico architecture.

By Carmella Padilla
Photography by Jack Parsons

This article first appeared in Autumn 2009 Su Casa

Editor’s note: El Rancho de las Golondrinas: Living History in New Mexico’s La Ciénega Valley, by author Carmella Padilla and photographer Jack Parsons, tells the story of the historic Spanish colonial–era “Ranch of the Swallows” in La Ciénega, just southwest of Santa Fe. The book covers everything from the ranch’s 18th-century beginnings to its 1933 purchase by the Curtin family to its eventual transformation by the Curtin-Paloheimo family into an open-air museum. In this excerpt, Padilla follows Y. A. and Leonora Curtin Paloheimo as they undertake the seemingly overwhelming task of converting the ranch—Leonora’s birthright—into the state’s only living museum. Years were spent finding relics, reconstructing entire buildings, incorporating authentic architectural details, and finding the right people to make it happen.

In early August 1968, Leonora and Y. A. [Paloheimo] drove north to Trampas, where they met José Romero standing outside his house across the road from the village church.

The couple spotted a large wooden well house with a lattice front in the front yard. When asked if he cared to sell the well house, Romero agreed that he might. Leonora recalled the encounter in her journal from that year.

“Would you like to see some old window frames?” inquired an aging little farmer and member of the Penitente Brotherhood who lived in one of the villages along the High Road to Taos. His name was José Romero, and he spoke no English. His blue eyes sparkled, and the lowering sun gave a gleam to his light complexion and rosy cheeks as he very courteously led his visitors up a ladder and into the loft of his old barn. It was there in this setting that the first collecting for the Old Ciénega Village Museum began in its modest way.

The trip up to the loft, where bunches of native herbs and straw dried overhead, resulted in a variety of sturdy old window frames and the gift of a handmade straw broom. Outside in the yard again, beside a pile of firewood and scrap lumber, lay old wooden crosses and pickets from an abandoned graveyard. A large log sheep barn and a couple of useful-looking vigas gathered dust nearby. The three walked into Romero’s house and struck a deal for the items. As Leonora recalled in her journal, “The agreement was a happy one, and we left with the warm feeling that somehow we had been guided to this house and that the money was truly needed there.” Two weeks later, Romero died.

In the summer of 1968, as America stumbled headfirst through the Summer of Love, the Paloheimos stepped purposefully back into the history of New Mexico. For decades, both individually and as a pair, the two had been engaged in a variety of cultural and historic preservation projects. Y. A’s 18-year tenure as an honorary Finnish consul had ended in 1964. Now, both were gripped by a story from the past that merged all their years of professional and personal experience into a project like no other. The story of Las Golondrinas—as home to the Vega y Coca and Baca clans, as paraje on the Camino Real, as a rare and revealing example of a robust culture shaped in formidable times—was in their hands. The life of Las Golondrinas as a living history museum had begun.

In 1966, shortly after their fateful walk through the ranch with architect John Gaw Meem, the couple started work in earnest to transform the family’s country home into an open-air museum. At the heart of their mission was preservation—to preserve the physical and cultural touchstones of life at Las Golondrinas in Spanish colonial times. But other than the property deeds and villagers’ assorted, and sometimes inconsistent, ancestral tales, the couple initially had few official records of life in the period. Fortunately, the ranch still held the spirit of the Vega y Coca and Baca families in its creaky earthen corners and vast geography. Somehow, it seemed, they would lead the way through this complex cultural puzzle of people and place.

The couple started, quite literally, from the ground up, at the site of the crumbly old stone barn and rundown adobe house. The location of these structural remains was ideal, atop a knoll above vast planting fields and shady cottonwoods. Here, as in days past, the historic Acequia de la Ciénega cut through the countryside to irrigate crops and connect residents of La Ciénega with villages beyond, binding nature with neighbor in a cohesive communal force. At the far edge of the fields stood the stone foundations for a long-lost wooden flour mill that had once served ranch residents. The site undoubtedly had historical significance, although clearly much had disappeared. But where one person might see abandonment and decay, the Paloheimos saw vital signs of life. In its own way, they believed, even the emptiness was lovely. Even if they could not resurrect the ranch’s exact past, they could resurrect its soul.

They worked quietly at first, though with the support of preservation-minded friends. In particular, Meem and artist Bill Lumpkins, who had worked with Leonora at the Native Market and at the state vocational education program, were trusted advisers. Contractor Elias Sena of Santa Fe provided labor and expertise in traditional adobe building techniques, assisted by several La Ciénega laborers. Their first priority was to determine to what degree the existing structures could be restored. The 19th-century house was a good place to start, for many Baca descendants still living in La Ciénega carried memories and family oral history about the house, which some recalled visiting as children.

The house was believed to have been built in the early 1800s, possibly as late as 1835, by Manuel Baca y Delgado, son of José Francisco Baca y Terrus and Manuela Delgado and grandson of Captain Manuel Delgado. Many relatives described a large, L-shaped dwelling. Now, only three rooms were standing. Architecturally, as Meem had pointed out, it was notable for its combined use of handmade adobes and sod terrones, dried dirt bricks cut from nearby marshes or stream beds. Bent and broken vigas dangled overhead.

Although some original foundations remained, an exact reproduction was impossible. The house’s subsequent reconstruction was thus a combination of what existed on the ground and what remained in the memory of the Baca relatives. Supposition based on the era in which the house was originally built also guided the design. With the threat of Indian attacks substantially decreased by the end of the 18th century, the Baca House did not require an enclosed, defense-minded design. Particularly notable is the absence of a torreón and the use of large glass windows.

With the Baca reconstruction under way, word of the Paloheimos’ venture was bound to get out. The couple themselves stirred outside interest as they worked to educate themselves further about traditional New Mexican architecture and the Spanish colonial period. They read everything they could get their hands on about the subject and visited such classic colonial venues as the early-19th-century Martínez Hacienda in Taos and the late-19th-century Casa San Ysidro in Corrales. Among those who perked up their ears was the state historian Myra Ellen Jenkins, who contacted Y. A. to relate some of Las Golondrinas’ documented historical facts. The ranch had been an important stop on the Camino Real, she informed him as well as an overnight resting place for the renowned Governor Juan Bautista de Anza in 1780. . . . As additional facts and insight emerged, the ranch slowly awoke to a previous life.

With new information in hand and a developing plan for a museum complex, the couple decided to go further back in time to La Ciénega’s and Las Golondrinas’ earliest period of Spanish settlement. Turning to the stone-and-adobe hay barn, just west of the Baca House, they imagined what the site might have looked like 100 years prior, in the early 18th century, when Miguel de la Vega y Coca established a presence in the village. The barn’s stone center, some historians believed, could have been built as early as the 17th century, although, like its adobe extensions, the barn’s pitched tin roof and wood floor were later additions. Still standing at the building’s west end was a wall believed to have been part of a kitchen in a small adobe house added to the stone structure at a later date. Again, leftover footings from previous eras were located; they served as a rough guide for where to build. But the plan for this portion of the ranch went beyond what the original footprint revealed. The Paloheimos envisioned the site as the entryway to colonial New Mexico, the place where museum visitors would begin their tour.

The idea was to build an authentic Spanish colonial placita (small plaza), an enclosed square courtyard and residential area, to demonstrate how people lived during more perilous times. Its fortified exterior, featuring an attached defensive torreón, would have provided protection from marauding Indians and other threats. Entry to the space would be through a spacious covered zaguán, or breezeway, with a gate large enough to let wagons, livestock, and groups of people through and a smaller door for individual access. Inside, a multifaceted, multiroom residential space would ring the courtyard and include a kitchen, living room, bedrooms, storage room, weaving room, servants’ quarters, and more. Thin sheets of mica, the 18th-century substitute for glass in New Mexico, would cover the structure’s tiny and few windows. A well house, assorted hornos, and bancos (adobe benches) would be placed in the courtyard. Finally, a private family chapel would run the rectangular length of the stone barn, emphasizing the central role that religion played in settlers’ lives.

Y. A. supervised every aspect of construction from Santa Fe and Pasadena, while Leonora continued exhaustive research. . . .

Work on the Baca House and Golondrinas Placita convinced the couple that they needed antique woodwork, metalwork, and other architectural details to give the new structures a truly historic feel. In the summer of 1968, they began scouting northern New Mexican villages for neglected bits of history that would make the picture complete. José Romero’s window frames, vigas, and other items were an auspicious start.

The couple’s timing could not have been better; everywhere they went, they discovered discarded antique treasures that villagers were more than happy to sell. Many Hispanos regarded the items as obsolete reminders of more difficult and impoverished times. As the couple scoured barn lofts and woodpiles for valuable pieces of the past, they also learned about important colonial-era structures sitting idle in villages statewide. According to villagers and expert friends, these buildings were disappearing fast.

Las Golondrinas may have been limited in terms of original colonial architecture, but its rolling landscapes were limitless. To more fully re-create the physical environment in which early settlers had lived, the Paloheimos decided to add more historic buildings to Las Golondrinas, just as Colonial Williamsburg was a compilation of period-appropriate structures from other sites. Preservation of historic Las Golondrinas now evolved into a much greater mission: to preserve historic structures from throughout New Mexico before they disappeared amid the state’s accelerated growth and development.

museum miracles department
From the start, the Paloheimos knew that transforming Las Golondrinas into a living history museum would be a monumental task. Indeed, Meem had warned Y. A. of the major expense involved with such a large-scale preservation project. But the Paloheimos were keen on the holistic approach that characterized the classic open-air museum. In addition to erecting historic buildings on site, they would appoint building interiors and outdoor spaces to illustrate farm and ranch products, household items, religious objects, and other touches that demonstrated the character of colonial residents in all aspects of daily life.

By the time the pair began crisscrossing the state in search of museum outbuildings and other exhibit items, most Hispano villagers had adopted electric ovens, washing machines, and power tools. Nonetheless, as soon as locals heard the purpose of the Paloheimos’ quest, they welled with pride in their culture and sentimentality about saving what might be lost. Villagers’ memories and general word of mouth sent the couple searching in directions they may not have otherwise gone: to Vallecitos for root cellars; to Truchas, Talpa, and Mora County for a unique assortment of water-driven mills, including a massive late-19th-century gristmill from Sapello; to a just-razed historic house on De Vargas Street in Santa Fe for vigas and hand-forged nails; and just down the road in La Ciénega for a tannery building. Other buildings, including a blacksmith’s shop, a wheelwright’s shop, a sheepherder’s cabin, and the assorted 18th- and 19th-century log buildings from which they created the high-mountain Sierra Village, were found elsewhere.

The buildings spanned two centuries of time and technique. While many living history museums focus on a specific point in time, the Paloheimos took a decidedly more comprehensive approach, placing buildings from different periods in select locales throughout the ranch. With the buildings in place, the job was not only to make the aged structures beautiful but also to make them functional. Again, with help from others, things fell into place. Leonora detailed some of the more memorable events in her journal, in a section she wryly entitled “Museum Miracles Department.”

When it was discovered that two of the drums were missing in the newly acquired tannery, Elias Sena directed the couple to a La Ciénega man (already a ranch employee) who knew how to make them. Then, when they wondered who would possibly know how to operate the tannery and demonstrate tanning techniques as part of a living exhibit, Sena casually mentioned that he had taught tanning in the past. A local work crew had been hired to haul the buildings from distant villages. The Paloheimos were pleasantly surprised to find that the workers also had the various skills—roofing, plastering, carpentry, and laying adobe—needed to resurrect the structures at the ranch. Manuelita Córdova of Vadito knew how to make alís, a delicate finish coat for building interiors that gave a lovely pale wheat tint to adobe walls. She also knew how to mix mica-based paint, which was used to stencil cheerful floral designs on interior walls in the Sierra Village. Her husband, Laureano, who had his own mill in Vadito, was a great help in bringing the 1873 Truchas Molino back to life (the first time). When time came to fix the enormous, shattered Sapello water mill, another previously unknown La Ciénega neighbor, a man named LeFebre, eagerly offered to rebuild it. Bud Hagerman, a hydraulic engineer and the new ranch foreman after Facundo Pino, also had the skill and the will to help. As Leonora wrote, “Sometimes, the right people just fall from heaven.”

Day by day, piece by piece, the museum took shape. From the Golondrinas Placita and the Baca House, other buildings fanned out across the countryside, each one perfectly placed to appear as if it had been there forever. One day, as Y. A. toured a local historian through the site, the visitor stressed that Paloheimo should never move the “original” structures from this “original” site. It was perhaps the highest compliment Y. A. could receive. Original or not, the setting left a timeless impression.

By 1970, with the museum well under way, the community was buzzing with anticipation, as well as some concern among local Hispanos. Early news of the Paloheimo project had been met with skepticism by some Hispano leaders, who scoffed at the notion that an Anglo couple could accurately interpret their culture. Other Hispanos were outraged over rumors that the couple was pilfering their patrimony by moving historic structures from their original sites. All along, Y. A. had held that there was only one way the project would work, and that was with the full cooperation and enthusiasm of area Hispanos. Now that a more complete museum picture had begun to emerge, the Paloheimos invited a number of leading area Hispanos to the ranch to have a look. . . .

As they toured the site, Y. A. explained his intentions to protect historic structures, assuring his guests that the ranch had acquired only buildings that were in imminent danger of demolition or had been damaged by long-term neglect. He then laid out his vision for educating the public about the cherished cultural traditions and values of New Mexican Hispanos, using demonstrators and others to interpret daily life in colonial New Mexico.
The guests were awestruck. “My jaw dropped,” recalled Adrian Bustamante in a 2007 interview. “I said, ‘Now, this is what the culture needs.’ I loved the idea.” . . .

Y. A. called the venture the Old Ciénega Village Museum. (The name changed to El Rancho de las Golondrinas in the late 1980s.) He asked the group to join him and Leonora in bringing the museum to its full realization. The couple wished to form a nonprofit foundation, the Colonial New Mexico Historical Foundation, to support the museum’s operations and guide its continued development. The group needed no convincing: they agreed to do whatever they could to help. By August 1971, a 30-member foundation board of directors had been assembled, with Phil Lovato elected as president.

Organization bylaws were drafted and adopted, and articles of incorporation filed. In a 1986 document, Anita Gonzales Thomas described the board’s first meeting. “I think Mr. Paloheimo was walking on air,” she wrote.