NM08 - Taos — Livin' on Taos Time

Sitting in the Taos Inn’s Adobe Bar by a roaring piñon fire, listening to local musicians play a jazzy bluegrass jam, and sipping a Cowboy Buddha margarita, I can’t help but think at this moment Taos is the best of all worlds.

On any given night the historical Taos Inn lives up to its reputation as being the living room of Taos. Once the home and office of Dr. Thomas and Helen Martin, 70 years later it serves as a cozy winter nook or lazy summer patio where locals lounge with tourists, the famous, the wise, and the wandering. This eclectic mix of people is Taos.

And Taos is people — Native Americans who have been here for 6,000 years, Spanish farmers and traders, Anglo frontiersmen and artists who “discovered” Taos’s magical light a century ago, and souls worldwide today who are drawn to its quirks and communal good nature. Taos’s history, art, dining, shopping, museums, skiing, cozy inns, and luxurious resorts are all a reflection of this. Taos is so laid back it’s where New Mexicans come to relax, and that’s exactly what my wife, Kat, and I are doing.

After a great night’s sleep, full of the energy Taos seems to generate, we grab chile-smothered breakfast burritos at Doc Martin’s Restaurant in the inn. Between spicy bites we decide to start our day exploring by beginning at the beginning — nearby Taos Pueblo.

Taos Pueblo was established here 1,000 years ago for its abundant natural resources, and I have to think, its dreamlike beauty. We follow our guide to the iconic ziggurat-shaped homes that are listed as both a National Historic Landmark and a United Nations World Heritage Site. As we marvel, he explains that the Spanish sought Taos Pueblo as one of the Seven Cities of Gold, and I can see how that description made it to myth. The warm adobe plaster laced with straw glistens in the sunlight, and round Taos Mountain watches over its people in the backdrop. Most of Taos 6,500 tribal members live in nearby modern neighborhoods, but a hardy 150 still live here traditionally without indoor plumbing or electricity. Snowmelt from Taos Mountain flows through the village and provides the residents with all they need. Before leaving, we can’t resist buying a micaceous pot, an art for which Taos Pueblo is known. Hungry for more history and art, we set out for Taos’s museums.

The birth of Taos as an art mecca began in 1898, when itinerant artists Bert Phillips and Ernest Blumenschein were making their way to Mexico to paint. A broken wagon wheel forced them into town, and after seeing Taos they gave up all thoughts of Mexico. By 1915 they had easily convinced others to join them in Taos, and the Taos Society of Artists was created (in what’s now the Taos Inn). Art patroness Mabel Dodge Luhan followed and hosted writers D.H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley, photographer Ansel Adams, Georgia O’Keeffe, and a host of other world famous luminaries, solidifying Taos’s reputation to the this day as a Bohemian retreat.

We start with the Taos Art Museum, once artist Nicolai Fechin’s home near the Fechin Inn. The museum itself is a work of art, with its expert woodworking details, and in fact it is on the National Register of Historic Places. But it’s the 300 stunning masterpieces by Fechin and 50 other Taos masters such as Joseph Sharp and E. I. Couse that make us realize we could spend a day here alone.

Risking art overload, we venture to charming Ledoux Street and take in the Harwood Museum of Art, which presents everything from Spanish Colonial works, Taos masters, and even the contemporary work of the renowned, late Agnes Martin, whose contemplative work hangs in its own room. Nearby, the E. L. Blumenschein Home and Museum celebrates this prolific artist’s life.

Tucked away in the south end of Taos is the Martinez Hacienda. Built in 1804 by a prominent Taos family, it served as an important trading center for the area, and marked the end of the Camino Real from Mexico City. After Mexico’s separation from Spain in 1821, the hacienda continued to serve as an important trade zone for American goods shipped West on the Santa Fe Trail. The now-museum shows life in Taos as it was in these eras.

On Taos’s north end, the Millicent Rogers Museum displays the passion of this art patron and fashion designer who moved to Taos in 1947, enamored of its Native jewelry and Spanish weavings. Rogers is credited with bringing the appreciation of Southwest Native and Spanish design to the greater fashion world. Today, Rogers’ home-turned-museum contains one of the finest collections of Native and Spanish art and design in the world, including a beyond-impressive collection of Maria Martinez’s famous black-on-black pottery.

Close to the Taos Plaza (on Kit Carson Road), the Kit Carson Home and Museum celebrates the lives of this American frontiersman and his wife, Josefa Jaramillo. We learn Carson is a complicated New Mexican figure, both a fighter and a friend of Native tribes throughout the country. Carson and Josefa are buried side-by-side nearby at the Taos Cemetery in Kit Carson Memorial State Park.

Our heads full of information and our hearts inspired, we begin the financially dangerous Taos pastime of gallery hopping. There are nearly 100 art galleries in Taos, representing every range of disciplines. And in true Taos style, the artist is often there at their gallery, happy just to talk about art and answer questions about their work as humbly as a student. We delight in meeting J.D. Challenger at his gallery near the Plaza, and he insists on giving us a signed poster of one of his stirring Native American portraits. Our art wish list ever growing, we stroll the historical Plaza with its solemn war monument and explore the side streets; Kit Carson, Ledoux, Bent, and Ranchitos. All seems like hidden neighborhoods with their own treasure of cute shops, sidewalk cafés, and candlelit restaurants. Despite our sampling of chocolates and other spontaneous treats as we stroll, we’ve worked up an appetite. We make our way over to La Fonda de Taos, where before we climb into an exotic booth at Joseph’s Table, we pay to see D. H. Lawrence’s stab at painting, which is displayed in a locked room at the hotel. We decide we’re glad he didn’t quit his day job of writing, but are amused 100 years later that his figure studies were considered so scandalous that he and his art were banished from England.

After a dinner that more than lives up to its AAA Four-Stars and hype from The New York Times, we venture down Kit Carson Road to El Monte Sagrado, a resort that has taken painstaking measures to be environmentally sound while not skimping on luxury. We enjoy a nightcap at the Anaconda Bar, drinking in the otherworldly atmosphere, before returning to our room to rest up for another day of big decisions. There are hikes to be had, art to buy and more restaurants to try. But most importantly, there’s time to just take time and revel in the artwork, architecture and energy that makes Taos what it is — a place like no other, even in New Mexico.