Given Santa Fe’s rich cultural mix and its centuries-old history, the city is certainly dappled with plenty of historic homes featuring distinctive adobe architecture.  But not every residence in northern New Mexico is significant or has striking design elements.  Some homes need a bit of help.

            Such was the challenge for Santa Fe interior designer Deena Perry, IIDA, principal of The Habitat of Santa Fe, when it came to a recent residential remodeling. 

            Perry, who has had a design practice in the city since 1978, was asked to give dimension, color and historic patina to a 3,500-square-foot 1950’s home, constructed partially of adobe.

            “To be perfectly honest, the house was plain Jane, boring, vanilla when we started,” recalls Perry.  “It did, however, have a nice quality of light inside.”

            The clients, a couple, had just purchased the house because it worked space-wise for the grand piano the wife played and for the informal recitals, they enjoyed hosting.  They had seen Perry’s work at a friend’s house and admired her deft touch with bold color and scale, as well as her appreciation for the design styles of Mexico. 

            Before the furnishings and art could be placed, parts of the house were reconstructed.  Perry removed a freestanding bar off the living room and created an elevated platform to showcase the grand piano, adding built-in bookcases for music books.  She transformed a central atrium, just opposite the front door, into a show-stopping dining room, complete with a wall fountain, a large domed skylight, pillars and ledges.  The room now is large enough to accommodate dinner parties.  Santa Fe architect Elizabeth Wagner was asked to design the living room’s new sculptural fireplace, and later helped with other remodeling projects.

            Perry kept the home’s original mesquite flooring, matching it in the living room where the piano stood.  The walls, however, were redone, faux finished in an ochre color, warmed with an umber wash.  She added more interest to the wall surfaces with hand painted chair rails and mouldings around doorways.  In the living room, these painted mouldings add the illusion of height to a pair of French doors.  “The house has the color of the late blooms of the chamisa,” Perry says, referring to the area’s native golden-blossomed shrubs.

            With the interior’s strengthened architecture and its rich colors, Perry picked furniture and art for its heavier scale and vivid colors.  She shopped the local antiques and furnishing shops, as well as national manufacturers.  In the living room, Perry had a deep sofa upholstered with reverse damask, then flanked it with a pair of carved wood armchairs upholstered in a rich kilim fabric. A large retablo, or religious painting, hangs over the sofa.  In the dining room, the designer used the homeowners’ long, narrow trestle table and added iron chairs softened by seat cushions.  For the kitchen’s eating area, Perry found a “funky” turquoise cupboard and designed a round table that can expand to accommodate guests for informal meals.  The kitchen’s lightweight rattan chairs can easily be moved into the adjacent living room when the couple hosts recitals.

            Under Perry’s gaze, the once-vanilla house has gained visual character and a sense of regional charm.  As Perry puts it, the home has some of the color elements of Luis Barragan, the Spanish Colonial style of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and the high-desert lifestyle of Santa Fe.