A splendid condo on Alameda

By: Paul Weideman
Published online: Sunday, February 03, 2013
Appeared in: Home, Santa Fe Real Estate Guide
Edition: February 2013 Vol. 15 No. 11

Also by Paul Weideman:

• Your flooring choices
• Hotel project on pace for summer ’14 opening
• Fewer using reverse mortgage after spike
• ARTfeast, Art of Home Tour coming up

Santa Fe businessman Felipe Delgado consolidated this property 150 years ago from lots owned by merchant Anastacio Sandoval and farmers. Subsequent owners included Levi Hughes and Charles Proebstel, who were the founders of the Santa Fe Builders Supply Co. (Sanbusco); and, from 1967 to 2004, Zane and Maryann Spiegel.

The main house, facing on East Alameda Street and the Santa Fe River, was reportedly built in 1928 of pentile (blocks of a dense material once produced by the state penitentiary at Santa Fe) and was renovated and expanded in 1975. Six years ago, designer/builder Jay Parks added a half dozen condomimium units on the property; one of these, a handsome, 3,525-square-foot condo, is on the market.

There are four bedrooms and four bathrooms. All of the exterior walls are adobe and interior walls are wood-frame. The unit boasts wood floors and hand-plastered walls throughout. Heating is both in-floor radiant and forced-air heating, while summer highs are moderated wth a refrigerated air-conditioning system.

The living-room is graced with elegant wood windows with exposed lintels and a ceiling of vigas and coved plaster. In the kitchen, the ceiling is planks on vigas; other appointments are granite and wood countertops, a Viking range/oven, Sub Zero refrigerator exteriorally paneled in the same wood as the ample cabinet package, and a nice, big apron sink before a window.

An adjacent sitting room has a kiva fireplace. In fact, there are five fireplaces in this house, all bearing unique designs. The example in the living-room has bricks around the black-screened firebox, the whole placed within a frame of posts and carved-wood mantel. The living room opens onto a private patio — with a large, outdoor fireplace.

The master bedroom is modest in size, but gracious. The bathroom has a generous dressing room, a central changing table topped with the same blue marble as on the long bathroom vanity and in the shower.

The garage was excavated to help hide it at ground level. It is fully finished, as is a storage room. The driveway is heated, as are the canales (to prevent the buildup of heavy ice on these roof drains).

All of the well-planned landscaping plants are on a drip irrigation system

This property, 540 E. Alameda, Unit D, is co-listed by Moo Thorpe, Chris Haynes, and Jennifer Gallagher of Sotheby’s International Real Estate and Gary Hall and Meleah Artley of Barker Realty for $1,995,000.