Los Luceros and Murder at the Hacienda

 

Two posts in one day!!!  I really am catching up!  Murder at the Hacienda, the 4th in my 1920s Santa Fe mysteries (w/a Amanda Allen) just came out, and I am so excited to get caught up with Maddie and her gang again.  I was also excited because it's one of my favorite mystery tropes--a locked-in, snowed-in whodunit.

It's also based on a real place, and estate about a hour's drive from my home in Santa Fe.  Unlike the house in my book, it's a beautiful, peaceful place, with a wonderfully restores hacienda and acres of pasture (sheep herds!  Apple orchards(, near the Rio Grande with lots of walking trails.

Los Luceros (run by the Museum of New Mexico Foundation) is a 148 acre estate north of the little town of Alcalde and east of the Rio Grande, and it has a very long history, long used by Native pueblos.  By the early 1700s, it was part of the Serrano Land Grant, one of the earliest sites of apple orchards in the area (which are still there!  At their harvest festival open house, you can taste their cider).  It consisted of the main hacienda, the fark, cottages, and a chapel.  By the early 20th century, it had fallen into disrepair until purchased by Boston heiress Mary Cabot Wheelwright (also of the Wheelwright Museum in Santa Fe), who restored it and made it a haven for artists of all sorts, especially for women.  When she died, it fell into neglect again, but is not wonderfully restored and a joy to tour.  (Look for the Olive  Rush murals on the fireplaces!  Rush is often a character in my novels).  It was the scene of many parties, and there are even a few ghost stories...

If you're ever in the area, be sure and stop by, look at the house and walk by the river!  And there's a wonderful bio of Wheelwright, Mary Wheelwright: Her Book by Leatrice Armstrong, and Wheelwright was also an author and historian in her own right

More info for your visit

Heroine of the Weekend: Millicent Rogers

I can't believe it's November already!  I just packed away the pumpkins and ghosties, and now it's almost Thanksgiving.  I just finished writing the 3rd in the "Matchmakers in Bath" series, and am taking a little, much-needed cleaning house and reading my TBR pile break.  

But I was so excited to see that a Sotheby's auction is coming up with some jewels once belonging to Millicent Rogers!  I first heard of this fascinating woman when I was a child, and my parents took me to the Millicent Rogers Museum in Taos, which is a gorgeous old home filled with her collections of Native weavings, jewelry, paintings, and so much more.  I even wrote a novel about her life (alas, not yet published), because she was so, so much more than a fashion icon and heiress.  She packed a lot of life into her brief 53 years. 

Millicent Rogers (1902-1953) was a Standard Oil heiress, an artist, a socialite and fashion icon, a renowned art collector, an activist for Native American civil rights, and still considered one of the most stylish and fascinating women of the 20^th century. Though she had a short life, plagued by ill health after a childhood bout of rheumatic fever, it was a full and exciting one existence, lived in New York, Paris, Austria, Washington DC, Jamaica, and her final, true home in Taos, New Mexico. She was married three times, had three sons, and had love affairs with men like Ian Fleming and Clark Gable.  She was an advocate for Native American rights and a patron of the arts as well as a designer and creator of jewelry in her own right.  I hope one day you will see my story of her in print!  And I hope if you're in Taos, you'll visit her museum, and maybe say hello to her at the Sierra Vista Cemetery, where you can also find many members of the Taos Society of Artists and local characters.  It's a wonderful town, and I can see why she considered it her true home.

Info about the Sotheby's auction

The Millicent Rogers Museum

For more reading on her life:

Cheris Burns, Searching For Beauty and Diving for Starfish

Annette Tapert and Diane Edkins, The Power of Style (just a chapter on Rogers, but it's a wonderful book)

Arthur J. Bachrach, A Life in Full