In-Town Historic Areas:  Santa Fe’s historic Plaza has long been the centerpiece of the city and the place from which all distances are measured or considered.  The Plaza is at the center of the traditional government, arts and commercial district which is bounded by the loop created by Paseo de Peralta and Guadalupe Street.  Santa Fe’s older historic neighborhoods, like spokes in a wheel, surround the central Plaza area. 

The Historic Eastside is east of the Plaza and of one of the oldest and most popular areas of town.  Streets here wend their way through smaller neighborhoods.  Many of the homes are of adobe construction.  Streets like Acequia Madre, Canyon Road, Garcia Street, Camino del Monte Sol, Cerro Gordo and East Palace Avenue are filled with homes large and small that resonate with charm and authenticity.  Canyon Road is home to the largest collection of Santa Fe art galleries, from contemporary art at Chiaroscuro, to Native American art and American Western art at a variety of galleries. 

From the Historic Eastside and Camino del Monte Sol, the much sought after neighborhoods near St. John’s College include Camino de Cruz Blanca, Museum Hill – off the Old Santa Fe Trail, Camino Rancheros, Sun Mountain Estates and Wilderness Gate.   

Artist Road/Hyde Park Road on the north side leads from town near the Scottish Rite Temple and Fort Marcy Park to the Santa Fe Ski Basin.  The road climbs towards the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and off it are a myriad of communities including Estancia Primera, with its enclaves of Los Nidos, Los Altos, Los Altos Norte and Kachina Heights, Sierra del Norte, Los Cerros Colorados, Santa Fe Summit and Santa Fe Summit South.  The mountains are a beautiful setting and many of the homes in this area have compelling views.

Two blocks north of the Plaza, Washington Avenue changes its name to Bishops Lodge Road.  Off Bishops Lodge and to the west are another series of neighborhoods, a mix of old and new, with many housing options including condominiums on the North Hill and single family residences large and small.  Bishops Lodge Road climbs a series of ridges and a multitude of neighborhoods like Brownell Howland, Camino Encantado, Tesuque Ridge and Circle Drive before gently reaching the Bishops Lodge Resort and Tesuque Village beyond.

West of the Plaza are historic neighborhoods off Agua Fria and West San Francisco Streets.  Many of the homes are adobe and are part of compounds or clustered on narrow streets and winding lanes.  Nearby is the recently re-invented Railyard district with loft-style housing options, Sanbusco Market Center, Railyard Art Galleries, SITE Santa Fe and the Santa Fe Farmers Market. Railyard galleries include Lewallen Contemporary, Box Gallery, James Kelly Contemporary and the newest edition, Charlotte Jackson Fine Art.

To the south of Paseo de Peralta and west of the Old Santa Fe Trail is the historic South Capitol District.   A mix of architectural styles including Pueblo Revival, Arts and Crafts, Territorial and contemporary lofts can be found here.  Galisteo Street and Don Gaspar Avenue are among the main thoroughfares and there is nearby shopping on Cordova Road and at Whole Foods.  For weekend or vacation excursions, two outstanding Bed & Breakfasts offering great hospitality, El Farolito and the Four Kachinas Inn are located nearby.

Beyond the Historic and Within the City Limits:  As you move through town to the south and the west, there are numerous wonderful neighborhoods large and small including DeVargas Heights, Los Senderos, Sol y Lomas and Quail Run – a gated golf/spa community to the southeast and Casa Solana, Casa Alegre, Las Lomas, Coyote Ridge and Vista Encantada to the West off Alameda and Agua Fria.  To the south, off Rodeo and Zia Road, communities like design award-winning Nava Ade, Los Caballeros, Park Plazas, Villas de la Toscana, Pueblos del Sol and Pueblos de Rodeo to name a few are close by the Santa Fe County Rodeo Grounds and Chavez Community Center, a complete venue for athletic facilities. 

Other areas with energy and community are Second Street between Cerrillos and St. Michaels Drive where you’ll find one of Santa Fe’s most established galleries, Linda Durham Contemporary Art, testing new waters and the Baca Street Area at the south end of the Railyard.  Here glass rules the day.  Beyond the beaten path, the industrial/mixed use area off Siler Road between Cerrillos Road and Agua Fria offers alternatives in live/work situations.  This area is home to contemporary art gallery Dwight Hackett Projects.

Northwest of Town in Near-In Santa Fe County:

Rolling terrain, big views to the west of the Jemez Mountains and to the north and east of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains define this landscape.  Here you will find Las Campanas, Santa Fe’s pre-eminent golf community with additional amenities including clubhouse with fitness equipment, pool and restaurant, horse facilities and more.  Las Campanas encompasses a large swath of land and opens from the main access road – Las Campanas Drive – through a series of gated entries. The community offers a variety of housing options including patio homes freestanding homes and multistory residences.  Premium lots include fairway views as well as mountain views.

Outside of Las Campanas are a series of smaller communities many of which are accessed off of Camino la Tierra or Las Campanas Drive.  Under the umbrella of Las Tierras, you’ll find La Tierra, La Tierra Nueva and Tierra del Oro. Others communities include Tessera,  La Vida, La Serena, Los Suenos, La Mirada, Salva Tierra and Sundance Estates.  .  While lot sizes will vary, most are somewhere between 1.0 and 12.5 acres.  Other wonderful and view-filled areas are off Tano Road including Monte Sereno and Heartstone. While some of these communities are gated, most are not.

Lastly, in a more planned village-like setting with open spaces, paved access and walking trails, is the Aldea community.  Patio and single family homes in single and multi-level formats are found here.

Northeast of Town in Near-In Santa Fe County:

As you head north from Santa Fe in close proximity to town, you’ll find the dramatic and varied landscape around the Santa Fe Opera and Village of Tesuque.  The Santa Fe Opera is world renowned, offering performances of innovative and traditional opera with outstanding casts of established performers and new, up and coming talent. The theatre itself is wonderful architecturally and inhabits a stunning site.  Adjacent to it, on Tesuque Pueblo land is the Flea Market.

Adjacent to the Opera are two communities, Casas de San Juan – a mix of luxurious single family homes and attached and free-standing condominiums in a stunning and view-filled setting and Monte Sereno, one of Santa Fe’s newest communities offering single family homes and home sites. Architectural styles here run the gamut from the vernacular pueblo revival to outstanding contemporary design. 

Not far away are the Village of Tesuque and the Tesuque Pueblo.  The historic village runs along the Tesuque Creek.  Like several other villages in the area, Rio En Medio and Chupadero, the river bosque offers deciduous trees and a lush, green setting.   Tesuque has homes large and small, with estate properties and easy access to hiking and the Santa Fe National Forest. In the village is the Tesuque Market and Restaurant, El Nido Restaurant, an elementary school and post office. 

Just beyond Tesuque, on the way to Rio y Medio are the residential communities of Los Caminitos and Vista Redondo.  Here you will find stunning hilltop residences on 5+ acre parcels.  Travel time to Santa Fe centro is perhaps 15 minutes but you have the distinct feeling of being in the country. With views of the Santa Fe National Forest and west to Las Barrancas, the Jemez Mountains and other mountain ranges as far away as Colorado, the landscape is breathtaking. A new and welcome addition to the area is the Encantado Resort and Spa, a part of the Auberge Hotel Group on the site of the old Rancho Encantado.  The award winning Terra restaurant is located here.

Southeast of Town in Near-In Santa Fe County + Eldorado, Lamy and Galisteo

Among the wonderful things about Santa Fe is that as you travel away from the city center, each direction offers a new terrain, each with characteristics inherent to the high desert yet varied and unique.  Here within moments of the Sangre de Cristo Foothills, the Sandias and Ortiz Mountains and Cerrillos Foothills loom larger than the Jemez Mountains to the west.

You first reach Arroyo Hondo, Sunlit Hills and Hondo Hills.  All are accessed off of the Old Las Vegas Highway, affectionately also called the High Road to Eldorado.  Arroyo Hondo is horse country.  A flatter yet rolling terrain that is ideal for riding out.  Minimum acreage here for a single family home is 2.5 acres.  Many of the homes are on larger properties and include horse barns and arenas.

Sunlit Hills is true to its name – populated with hills and ridges, many with excellent tree cover and big views.  The Hondo Hills community is similar, generally 2.5 acre + home sites on pinon and juniper covered lots.  Along the way are classic roadside eateries like the Bobcat Bite and Harry’s Roadhouse and a wonderful new B & B called Terrain Santa Fe. Nearby is the El Gancho, a local fitness center with tennis facilities.

Approximately 6 miles past the city limits – off US 285 South, you reach the Eldorado Area.  Comprised of a number of different communities, Eldorado at Santa Fe being the largest, it is easily accessed from the Old Las Vegas Highway or by hopping on I-25 North for one exit. The design of the Eldorado community focused on 1+ acre lots interwoven with 987 acres of open spaces also referred to as greenbelts.  The original community plan encouraged solar design and night sky rules and regulations that include down-cast exterior lighting which help to keep the stars luminously in view at night.  Many other subsequently developed communities incorporated this concept into their design regulations.  Eldorado is also unique in that it has a 4000+ acre Wilderness Preserve for the exclusive use of its residents.  Hiking trails and marked paths offer an abundance of outdoor adventure opportunities.

Other Eldorado area communities include La Paz at Eldorado, Belicia, Dos Griegos,  Alteza  and the Ridges.  Depending upon the property, the latter 3 may offer some some higher ground.  Horse lovers often chose the Los Caballos and Sun Ranch communities where lots are generally 10+ acres.

Further south on US-285, still within 20 minutes of the heart of Santa Fe are the Art Barns and Spirit Wind Ranch communities.  The former is focused on pitched-roof Northern New Mexico design homes.

Beyond are the traditional villages of Lamy and Galisteo, each with their own special flavor.  Lamy is the location of our local stop on the Amtrak main line and features a wonderful train station, historic church and small restaurant The Lamy Station Cafe in a railroad car.  The village and its outlying areas offer a varied choice of freestanding homes, some old and some of newer vintage.

Just beyond Lamy is the Village of Galisteo and its outlying environs.  The light and landscape of the Galisteo area has attracted artists and sojourners for as long as people have been present in Northern New Mexico. The Village is itself, a community including historic homes and structures along the Rio Galisteo bosque, some dating back to the 1800’s.  There is a wonderful old church at the crossroad and a series of beautiful streets like La Vega, Via La Puente and Marcellina Lane. Beyond is the Galisteo Basin with pueblo remains, petroglyphs and amazing rim rock formations. 

Outside the village are the residential community of Ranchitos de Galisteo and the amazing new community coming together as part of the Galisteo Basin Preserve Conservancy on the old Thornton Ranch.  The Preserve includes the emerging enclaves of New Moon Overlook, Southern Crescent, Conservation Ranches, East Preserve and Trenza – the Village.  Each offers unique opportunities in high desert living in a land conservation and community development area designed to be in harmony with the extraordinary landscape.  Lot sizes vary among the enclaves and govern how the land can be used.

Nestled at the ridge on Monte Sereno Drive, graced with excellent tree cover in a sloping terrain that affords big sky and shimmering mountain views to the north and west, this 1.31 acre homesite in the Monte Sereno community minutes from Santa Fe offers an outstanding opportunity for privacy and proximity to town.

With paved access, underground utilities the community offers easy access to the Santa Fe Opera, Tesuque Village Market and all Santa Fe has to offer. The intention of Monte Sereno’s planners is “to create an unparalleled community” that considers “the natural surroundings, the traditions and the culture of Santa Fe all in one unique parcel of land.”

3016 Monte Sereno continues to offer that promise at a remarkable price.

What does Art on the Edge mean to Santa Fe Real Estate?  Santa Fe is a vessel for the arts.  Art feeds our collective souls and conscience and the work of this group of emerging artists demonstrates how Santa Fe looks to the future, celebrates its past and finds richness and diversity in this continuum.

Light, landscape and majestic mountains, not to mention an amazing confluence of cultures, have helped to make Santa Fe a cultural crossroads. Accomplished artists, writers and just plain folk from around the world contribute to making Santa Fe a cultural beacon.  Art feeds Santa Fe’s economic engine and the earth under our feet…Santa Fe real estate – with its unique shape and transcendent form.

What gives art and Santa Fe edge?  New points of view from artists Eric Tillinghast, Deborah Hamon, Erika Blumenfeld, Michael Rogers, Kate Beck, Jessica Loughlin, and Ryan Bush in Art on the Edge make it happen.  Points of view from resident artists present and past like Agnes Martin, Florence Pierce, Eugene Newmann, Tom Joyce, Gerry Snyder, James Drake, Susan York and a myriad more help us to reconsider who we are and what we see.

Are we biased?  Absolutely!  We are long time supporters of contemporary art (not to mention Santa Fe real estate) and try in our own small way to do our part, to support our community.

Come see this exciting exhibition on display until August 1, 2010 or visit http://www.nmartmuseum.org/art-on-the-edge-20101.html if you can’t be here in real time.

Log in at the upper right hand corner of this page and explore the edge with us as you buy and sell real estate in Santa Fe.

Click here to see the most beautiful property in Tesuque

More than a third, 37 percent, of surveyed Coldwell Banker real estate sales agents said they had seen an increase in clients with adult children or a grandparent who would be living with the family, and almost 70 percent expected that share to increase during the next year, the survey said.

The biggest proportion of respondents, 39 percent, cited financial concerns as the main driver behind the trend, while 29 percent cited health care issues and 9 percent cited a strong family bond as the motivating factor, the survey said.

“While saving money is certainly an incentive for buying a home that accommodates multiple generations, the benefits go beyond just financial reasons,” said Diann Patton, a consumer specialist for the company.

“With two or three generations living under one roof, families often experience more flexible schedules, quality time with one another and can better juggle childcare and elder care.”

Real estate professionals selling homes with “mother-in-law suites” or spaces such as a refurbished basement or garage apartment should highlight those features to potential buyers, the survey said.

The survey also advised buyers to communicate what they want to each other, as well as their agent, and advised families to come up with a written contract that outlines responsibilities for finances, chores, and caregiving.

For the agent, “buyers must be clear about their exact needs. Some families may just want an extra bedroom or two for family members, while others require areas with a separate kitchen, entrance, handicap accessibility or even a larger garage for additional cars. Desired location may also be influenced by proximity to local hospitals, senior centers or other important activities to family members,” the survey said.

Coldwell Banker, which has 3,300 residential real estate offices and about 100,000 sales associates globally, conducted the national online survey in January and received 2,360 responses.

Version 2.2 includes the ability to: share Zillow’s home data and home value “Zestimates” with friends and real estate agents through social networks Twitter and Facebook, search for homes for rent and for sale simultaneously, and sync favorite homes between the user’s iPhone and Zillow.com account.

This is the company’s latest app update since August, when it added the ability to e-mail a favorite home to a friend or real estate agent, faster-loading maps, and support for viewing properties that overlap on the map (such as condos) within a single home bubble. A June update allowed users to filter searches by price, bedrooms, bathrooms, and listing type and to save searches and favorites (see story).

Zillow also added a “push notification” feature in June that alerts users when homes in the areas where they’ve saved searches are put on the market.

The app is approaching its first anniversary in April. Users have downloaded it more than 945,000 times since then, making it the most popular real estate app in Apple’s App store, the company said. Zillow also reported that users have viewed more than 2 million homes on the app each month.

The app uses location-finding technology to display nearby homes for sale or recently sold homes, along with their “Zestimates,” on a map as a user navigates a neighborhood. Zillow’s database contains information on 93 million homes.