DEVINE LIMOUSINE A Tale of Two Women By Les Daly Photos Linda Carfagno
Rolling smoothly—royally, almost—in the polished limousine conducted by a neatly-suited chauffeur, a thought occurs to the passenger as the car glides to its stop at the Santa Fe Opera; getting there is already a luxurious overture. Which is exactly what Yvette Roybal and Hope Anderson, the co-owners and operators of Santa Fe’s Devine Limousine service, have in mind.
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hey call their service “concierge,” because, says Roybal, they concentrate on offering “the kind of immaculate professional transportation guests expect the concierge to provide at places like the Carlyle Hotel in New York or the Peninsula in Beverly Hills.” Adds Anderson, “We’re not in the taxi business or a ‘get me a car’ operation, where you don’t know what kind of driver or what kind of car is going to show up— or when. Our business is about reliability, service and security, wrapped in comfort.” Anderson, 38, has the personality of someone who grew up in the town of Colville, Washington, population 4,706. When she answers the phone to arrange reservations, she sounds like a long-time friend who knows everyone in town and who has been waiting for just your call. Beyond her friendly demeanor, she is the organized operations manager who keeps the reservations in order and the whole fleet rolling. Roybal, 36, concentrates on the business side of the partnership, carefully maintaining and growing the fleet. The story behind the unusually-spelled name Devine? That is Roybal’s. She is an eighth-generation New Mexican, deeply appreciative of the culture and tradition of this unique place. While she wanted to convey that passengers might enjoy something modestly approaching a “divine experience,” she also wanted to be careful that no one would infer she was being presumptuous enough to suggest support of any kind from local divinity authorities. So, with the kind of adaptability characteristic of getting along in New Mexico, she simply changed one letter. “Devine sounds like the feeling we thought about, but respectfully,” she explains. Devine was formally launched in 2007, and almost immediately ran into the bumpy road of the economic recession, getting by for a while on the business of weddings and funerals. Always driven (one might say) to meet the expectations of the City Different’s cosmopolitan clients, the two women grew their business from a couple of cars to their current fleet of eight vehicles: four sedans, a five-passenger SUV, a pair of 12-passenger executive Sprinter vans and, recently, a 35-passenger bus. The diversity allows Devine to move comfortably between business and convention goers, hotel guests, tour groups and individuals. They also found an unexpected role meeting the needs of Santa Fe’s growing film production business.
“The vehicle you get is ours, the drivers work for us,” says Anderson, “and most of our drivers grew up here in Santa Fe. They don’t need a GPS to find a restaurant or the way to Bandelier. We’re in the service business; it’s all about the client. If we pick up someone at the airport and they want to stop at the grocery store or pick up their newly-edged skis on the way home, that’s what our drivers do.” Notably, in the same customer-driven way, they also insist their drivers assure a calm, relaxed ride, no matter the circumstances. One long-time Santa Fe woman who relies on Devine for her regular dental visits in Albuquerque sums up, “When you have to go to your dentist in the first place, and it’s 120 miles round trip to do it, calm and relaxed is good.” For more information, visit DevineLimoSantaFe.com.
LEFT: Hope Anderson RIGHT: Yvette Roybal