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By Jane Mahoney photography by Kirk Gittings Builder: Rutledge Homes oug and Mamie Collister could be regarded as guardians of history. Amid the cholla and desert marigolds of the Sandia Mountain foothills, the couple's home rises near the confluence of two arroyos once part of a Spanish land grant dating to 1694. Inside the home, located in Albuquerque's tony High Desert district, furnishings lovingly passed down through the generations are nearly as old. So when it came time to build their dream home, it's little surprise that the Collisters favored the historic Territorial style from New Mexico's pre-statehood days. While the home's location was never a question-Doug
Collister is president of the
High Desert Investment Corporation-the challenges came in modernizing a classic style while retaining its formal, elegant charm. Mter three years in the planning stages and nearly a year under construction by Rutledge Homes, this house succeeds admirably on all counts. 2 004 43 s u CAS A I WINTER
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"We wanted a traditional Southwestern home," says Doug, a third-generation New Mexican whose grandfather, Oscar Huber, once owned the coal mine in Madrid, N.M., along the historic Turquoise Trail. His paternal grandfather, James Collister, founded the store Kistler Collister in 1909. Mamie Collister comes from Chicago roots although her parents moved to Albuquerque when she was a child. Both families shared a love for antiques, art, and history. Many family antiques have been passed down to Doug and Mamie, and the couple has added to the collection during their 40-year marnage. There's the 1950s Walter Gilbert Ironworks chandelier over the dining room table; the fanciful bedroom suite painted with the folk art of northern New Mexico commissioned in the 1930s by Doug's grandparents; the safe from Marnie's father's office; and the lovely set of blue china passed down by Marnie's grandmother. Outdoors is the iron garden gate given to the couple in the first year of their marriage by Mamie's mother, a simple reminder of a successful partnership. "We knew where many of these pieces would go as we planned the house," Mamie recalls. "Eclecticism is an art in itself, and here it works well," says interior
The Collister residence maintains the formal boxiness of classic Territorial style. The roofline seems to mirror Sandia Crest. Inside, the off-angle room shapes break up the space in contemporary ways.
designer Patti Hoech of Patrician Design. Hoech had the formidable task of bringing together furnishings ranging from a 17th-century Spanish Colonial bench to a 150-year-old clock rescued from a stable in England. Colorful painted transom windows salvaged from the dining room of the Alvarado Hotel blend beautifully with a game table inherited from Mamie's grandparents. "When a family has such a sense of history, it brings a tremendous amount of soul to the home," says Hoech. Revered New Mexico architect John Gaw Meem updated traditional Territorial style during the 1920s, but the Collisters knew their design would need to accommodate site challenges and to exploit new building technology and stunning panoramas. Within 5,000 square feet, the home needed intimate areas for family, formal entertaining centers inside and outside, a private guest wing, and expanses of wall and lighting to highlight the Collisters' art and antique collection. Home designer Jim Beverly worked with the Collisters to come up with the design. "The Collisters recognized that the Territorial style has survived the test of time in New Mexico," Beverly says. "It remains crisp, has a certain formality that Pueblo or contemporary styles lack, yet its gracious portals keep it ever human in scale. They also appreciated the importance of understating ornamentation and the correctness of proportion necessary to properly execute this style." During the home-building process, Doug enjoyed researching the architectural history of New Mexico's territorial beginnings. He learned that the arrival of saw mills, brick kilns, and eventually the railroad hastened the building of a new style of residences that referenced Victorian homes back East but added a unique New Mexico flavor. By the late 1800s, lumber, once hand-hewn, could be mass produced locally and used in square vigas and window and door trim. Glass, still a precious commodity, opened up dark interiors. Brick coping defined flat roofs and slowed the deterioration of adobe, as well as provided a new flooring material. White trim inside and out brought a crispness to Territorial style. "We wanted something with these formal touches, yet a home adapted to contemporary materials and shapes," says Doug. Foremost, the family wanted a home that captured the expansive views afforded by the High Desert location. Indeed, most rooms offer views in multiple directions, be they of Sandia Crest, Bear Canyon, Pino Canyon, or the lights of the city with Mount Taylor in the distance. "It's like looking out at a Continued on page 70 48
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Time-tested
Territorial Continued from page 48
picture," says Mamie, standing at the kitchen sink in front of an expansive view of Sandia Crest. In keeping with Territorial style's emphasis on proportion, the Collisters opted for multiple divided and varying-sized windows trimmed in white rather than large picture windows. "We tried to keep things in the vernacular of the period," says Doug, "but we didn't go to extremes to be realistic." That statement perhaps best sums up the Collisters' approach to their home's design. For example, a traditional Territorial home is built in rectangular forms, but the Collisters' building site lent itself to views on angles. "Many of our rooms are at 45-degree angles to the windows," Doug explains. "The spine of the house was changed without it being too apparent on the exterior. Inside, we think it adds some interest to the rooms." The flooring material signaled another departure from traditional Territorial style. Rather than brick, the Collisters chose a volcanic, igneous stone from Mexico known as porphyry. Interior designer Hoech describes it as "similar to brick in feel but more like granite in nature." She particularly admires the stone's rusty red and gold-buff colors"very rich, elegant, and rustic at the same time," she says. The porphyry floor extends outdoors to portales and the front courtyard in keeping with the owners' desire for flow from room to room. Builder Kyle Rutledge dealt with the "very tricky" challenges of installing stone pieces that varied as much as an inch in thickness. Selecting warm interior hues, the Collisters veered away from yet another
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mainstay of Territorial style: white walls. "We've been married 40 years and I'd
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never had anything but a white wall," Mamie comments. The interior walls of
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the Collisters' new home boast mostly yellow or peach tones accented in white trim and crown molding. Hoech notes that the gold tones "complement
the
golden tones in the beams, the structural woodwork, and the antiques, too."
The Collister home has public areas and private ones. Some spaces welcome both family and visitors. The front door opens to a collection of paintings against simple plastered walls, exquisitely lighted. Continue straight into a formal dining room and living room, reminiscent of the traditional sala with its cast stone and concrete fireplace. Or turn through hand-painted glass doors into the intimate family room and kitchen where the warm-toned, distressed knotty alder cabinetry by Ernest Thompson melds effortlessly with high-tech, stainless steel appliances. That same cabinetry takes on a dark finish in the master suite bathroom in striking contrast to the honed Carrara marble vanity tops. "This is something you might see in a tum-of-the-century house in New Mexico," says Doug. Both Mamie and Doug are serious cooks and enjoy entertaining. "Four or five people can be in the kitchen cooking with us and there's room for everyone," says Doug. Guests can easily spill outside to generous-sizedportales.With an eye toward water management, rain runoff first waters a tiny grassy plot (a concession to toddler grandchildren), then spills down cobblestones to nurture a wildflower garden. Interior designer Hoech admires the Collister home because "you don't discover everything at the front door. This house has mystery, intimacy, and a human scale," she notes. Approaching the house through the courtyard, the front door is not directly in front of you, but slightly off to the side. The slow approach helps to maintain privacy and control on the part of the homeowner, says Hoech. Best of all, "It feels like a real home."
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Jane Mahoney is an Albuquerque fteelance writer and ftequent features contributor to the Albuquerque Journal and New Mexico Journey.
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