Los Luceros
historical gem with a queer backstory
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About 45 minutes north of Santa Fe, you’ll find one of the most beautiful hidden treasures of Northern New Mexico: Los Luceros. This ranch and estate is now designated as an historic site by the state of New Mexico, and is open to the public to enjoy and learn about its fascinating history.
The site itself, alongside the Rio Grande, has been inhabited for at least 1000 years, first by the Tewa Indigenous people, then Spanish settlers, then a small and fascinating group of Americans. In the late 1600s, Los Luceros was part of the Sebastian Martin Serrano land grant, and later owned by the Ortiz family. The hacienda picture above was built in the 1700s and renovated by subsequent owners. The ranch was one of the earliest Spanish colonial sites to plant apple trees and you can still see over 1,000 trees scattered throughout the property.
By the time the 1900s arrived and New Mexico had become part of the United States, Los Luceros was part of the San Gabriel dude ranch and had fallen into a sad state of disrepair. This is the part of the story where Mary Cabot Wheelwright enters, and where things get queer.
Mary, from a wealthy Boston family, came to the dude ranch to ride horses. She fell in love with Los Luceros and eventually used money inherited from her parents to buy and restore it. Like a small group of other women at the time which included Georgia O’Keeffe and Mabel Dodge Lujan, Mary discovered a much more expansive and liberating way of life in Northern New Mexico and shed the skin of her puritanical upbringings. She would go on to become an anthropologist and collector of Native American art, and she made the company of a number of extraordinary people including Hastiin Klah, a two-spirit Diné (Navajo) weaver, and Marie Chabot, a young woman from Texas who became the caretaker of the property and Mary’s companion. When Wheelwright died she left the estate to Marie, who also had a close relationship with Georgia O’Keeffe.
While it’s not possible to know exactly what kinds of relationships everyone had with each other, this is most definitely “queer” in the sense of a group of individuals straying far from the social norms they were expected to have at this time in history and finding their own beautiful way of living life. You can learn more about this fascinating circle of people and their stories in this article.
All of this makes for a beautiful morning or afternoon of adventure and relaxation, especially since this is one of the few places along the northern Rio Grande that is accessible to the public. As you drive through the entrance, you’ll make your way on a country road surrounded by apple orchards and then come to the visitor center where you can check in and get helpful information from very friendly park rangers. From the visitor center, take a beautiful meandering walk down a path lined with towering cottonwoods and more fruit trees. The walk eventually takes you all the way to the banks of the great river. Along the way, there are numerous historic buildings including the Hacienda and a capilla (chapel) built in the 1800s and still owned and used by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.
Wish you were here!
