Tip for visitors: Don’t miss live music Sundays and Mondays in La Fiesta Lounge, whether it’s me or other local musicians.ġ607: Earliest date that an inn was located at this site.ġ922: La Fonda on the Plaza opens, designed by architect Isaac Hamilton Rapp, with interiors by Mary Colter.ġ925: Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway purchases La Fonda. I meet so many fans here from all over the world. The lobby is incredibly beautiful, and I never get tired of it. It’s classic Southwestern and classic Santa Fe. What makes this place special? It hasn’t gone corporate. I’m into Southwestern, acoustic, sort of country-folk with a little honky-tonk two-step. The fans have been great during this pandemic, hanging in there. It’s been a wonderful ongoing relationship. We were a hit right away, and now it’s been 30 years. After my late wife, Bonnie, and I moved to Santa Fe, I got a call from a La Fonda manager who was a great two-stepper fan who told me, “I think you’d fit in great here.” They said let’s give it a try for 6 months and see what happens. In 1991, I was the resident music artist at the Alpine Lodge in Red River when it was sold.
Most are independently owned, mom-and-pop stores where the owner is usually behind the cash register. Tip for visitors: If you want to get educated in Santa Fe silver, jewelry, or art, talk to folks at one of our retail shops. Some of our art was commissioned by the Santa Fe Railroad decades ago. We’ve got everything from an 1800s portrait of a Mexican saint up to a painting done by a Native American in 2021. I’m also still an employee because I manage our retail tenants and I oversee our art collection, my favorite feature at La Fonda. In 2007, after Sam Ballen passed away, the board asked if I would be chairman of the board.
Then, I became a part-owner in the early 2000s. When I started, I was the hotel’s lawyer working for a private law firm. I’ve worn many hats in my almost 34 years at La Fonda.
We returned year after year for vacations. We came for Christmas, and we celebrated my birthday in La Plazuela restaurant. My parents were close friends with Sam and Ethel Ballen, the owners back then. I first visited La Fonda when I was about 10 years old.
#Detours at la fonda free#
Tip for visitors: Take one of our free art and history tours, which are open to anyone. It has beautiful high ceilings and balconies up above where docents in the 1920s addressed guests attending Indian Detours, the hotel’s very popular program of cultural tours that visited area pueblos. My favorite place here is the Santa Fe Room, which was originally called the Indian Lecture Room. The 60-minute program gives you a deep appreciation of this inn’s history and its art. Today, more than 7,000 people have taken our tours. They enlisted friends, and by 2015, we had 50 trained docents giving tours. I recruited 8 people from the New Mexico Museum of History and other places. People started asking about a docent program.
I learned more about the history of the hotel and the art in it. I led that one, and they asked for another, and then another. In 2013, after the hotel did a monumental room-renovation project, I got a call from the Newcomers Club of Santa Fe asking if they could get a tour. My role as unofficial hotel historian came about by accident.
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