Former Fenn’s For Sale
WILLIAM MELHADO
S FR E P O RTE R .CO M / N E WS
NEWS
With Nedra Matteucci Galleries on the market, a diverse crowd of would-be buyers leaves the eminent property’s future uncertain Nedra Matteucci next to a piece she says traveled all over Mexico before landing in the library
W
hen Nedra Matteucci and her husband, Richard, purchased Forest Fenn’s property at the corner of Paseo de Peralta and Acequia Madre in 1988, they knew it would come with the Greek-style stone wall, bright tile work and quarter-acre pond. They did not anticipate that Fenn would leave two live alligators as a welcoming gift. “He said he would take them when he finished his new house, but they had grandchildren and his wife said, ‘No,’” Matteucci tells SFR, adding that her insurance company didn’t like the alligators in the public gallery. “We kept them though still, for a few years,” Matteucci continues, “I tried to get any zoo all around to take them, and it didn’t happen, nobody wanted them. So eventually they went back to Louisiana where they came from.” In place of the two alligators, Matteucci’s lively pond is now surrounded by an elephant, scores of bears, a spitting toad and two ducks. Though all the animals—apart from the ducks—are cast in bronze, the enclosed garden toes the line between high-end gallery and Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland. While circumnavigating the pond, rattling off artists’ names and anecdotes about each piece, Matteucci tells SFR that it’s time to move on. “The timing’s right for us,” Matteucci says. “Forest created a wonderful space and I think that we added on with the sculpture garden and things, so it’s going to be a good home or office or whatever it’s going to be for someone.” Thirty-three years after Matteucci purchased the esteemed gallery from the late, infamous, treasure-hunt-creating
off her gallery. The library is connected to one of five guest houses that may be converted into and art-dealing Fenn, the ionic 2-acre a private residence. campus is up for sale again—listed for a cool $9.995 million. “It’s a jewel,” he says, adding that the person who wants to do a coffeehouse and “It’s just a very unique and beautiful space, I hope it stays open to the public to compound’s listing has piqued an abun- painting studio because the grounds are so dance of interest. beautiful.” use,” Matteucci says. With Acequia Madre water rights and Another possibility Bobolsky thought As potential art buyers and admirers wander through a doorway between these five individual homes in the heart of Santa interesting: a boutique assisted living comspaces, lingering between oil paintings of Fe’s east side, the property has attracted plex. And there are less attractive options: “Developers who want to make it into a aspens and amorphous marble women, potential buyers from all over. “We’ve had billionaires coming to look condominium project.” Matteucci recalls Fenn’s reaction when “And that would chop it up.” she created a passageway between the ri- at it for a private residence,” Bobolsky Though the sellers don’t have any stipparian-esque garden and the staunch ado- says. “We’ve had small tech firms from San Francisco for a campus...We’ve had one ulations for what the buyers do with the be gallery. compound, Bobolsky says that what“He was very upset when he saw ever comes of the property, he hopes me tearing the wall down to make a the new owners create “something door to go out from the gallery; he where it’s loved but they maintain told me I was going to ruin it,” she the integrity of the space, and they says. don’t squeeze it all out.” It took Fenn 10 years to forgive For Matteucci’s next moves, she her for knocking down the wall, but plans to focus her efforts on her othhe ultimately agreed it was the right er gallery, Morning Star, off Canyon call. Road, where she plans to expand Kevin Bobolsky, the property’s without all the overhead that comes realtor, says he’s been working with with the Acequia Madre property. the Matteuccis for decades, describTwenty-five years ago, Matteucci exing them as “class-act people” and plains, she bought the property be“preservationists.” He tells SFR the hind Morning Star with the idea of property is a steal. creating another sculpture garden. “We have priced it under $500 a She says she hopes to continue square foot,” Bobolsky says. “There’s the tradition of showing large piecover 20,000 square feet of adobe, aues—like Dan Ostermiller’s life-sized thentic Santa Fe architecture, and a animal sculptures—to the public, lot of the architecture has artisans transforming that space into, “not a or artists who have done turquoise baby Nedra Matteucci gallery, but a mosaic sinks, or frescos in the walls.” smaller gallery.” The whole property carries hisThis change comes as Matteucci torical significance, he says: “The hopes to continue her work, albeit detail in these buildings—there’s art on a smaller scale. By no means is built into the architecture.” she planning to retire: “I’m very Bobolsky mentions his last big Dan Ostermiller’s Rearing Elephant stands over 12 proud of that gallery and all my sale, the Cerro Pelon Ranch, was feet tall, spouting water—when in operation—into the artists and I don’t want to leave sold privately, not in the Multiple koi pond that serves as the centerpiece of Matteucci’s them hanging without a place to Listing Services, which is how he inanimated sculpture garden. show.” tends to sell the Matteucci Galleries. WILLIAM MELHADO
BY WILLIAM MELHADO w i l l i a m @ s f r e p o r t e r. c o m
SFREPORTER.COM
•
AUGUST 25-31, 2021
9
