APRIL 10 & 12: HIGHLIGHTS OF JOHN GAW MEEM’S REGIONAL DESIGN
Individual Ticketed Lecture Series in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
Join us for a two-day event featuring talks, tours, lunches, and receptions, starting at Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic Farm in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque and concluding at the Laboratory of Anthropology Director’s Residence, which is also home to the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum in Santa Fe. They will discuss the career of John Gaw Meem and his contributions to regional design. Tickets can be purchased individually or purchase tickets for both days at a discounted price.
The event will feature notable speakers:
Dr. Audra Bellmore is the John Gaw Meem Curator and architectural historian at the University of New Mexico since 2009. She manages the John Gaw Meem Archives of Southwestern Architecture and teaches in the Museum Studies Dept. Her book, Old Santa Fe Today, 5 th ed. was published by the Museum of New Mexico Press in 2022. Her new book, A Guide to the Historic Gardens and Everyday Landscapes of the Taos Art Colony is due to be published by the University of New Mexico Press in spring 2026.
Audra Bellmore, MS, MLS, PhD
Public History Professor and the Endowed Curator at the College of University Libraries, John Gaw Meem Archives of Southwestern Architecture
Judith Phillips
Author and Landscape Designer
Judith Phillips is a landscape designer who prefers working with native and xeric plants because they are beautiful, conserve water, and support wildlife. She has written five books and numerous articles encouraging people to garden with a passion for the high desert. Her book Growing the Southwest Garden concerns the climate-driven changes, new extremes facing western gardeners. Judith’s newest book, The Gardens of Los Poblanos, is her first foray into writing history. It is the saga of one of New Mexico’s premier historic landscapes, the evolution of a very special place from prehistory to present day relevance.
Matthew Rembe
Executive Director of Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic Farm
Matthew Rembe became Executive Director of Los Poblanos in 2004. Matt grew up on the property and envisioned a long-term plan for its future—taking it from a small B&B operated by his parents to a nationally recognized destination farm resort. Prior to his role at Los Poblanos, Matt worked as Director of Mary-Anne Martin/Fine Art in New York City, where he became a specialist in the field of 20th-century Latin American Masters. Matt attended Syracuse University, obtaining a BA in Spanish, and received his MBA from the prestigious Thunderbird School of Global Management. With Matt running the business full-time and a family board structure in place, the team has grown from six employees to over three hundred across eight distinct business areas. Los Poblanos’ collection of value-added products has played a key role in promoting New Mexico’s unique agricultural history for locals and visitors.
Chris Wilson
J.B. Jackson Chair of Cultural Landscape Studies, Emeritus, and founding director of the Historic Preservation and Regionalism Program at the University of New Mexico
THURSDAY, APRIL 10. 10:30AM TO 2:00PM
ARCHITECTURE, LANDSCAPE AND FAMILY HISTORY seamlessly blend together on the grounds of Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic Farm. Join us for an intimate walking tour of the vibrant grounds led by Dr. Audra Bellmore and author Judith Phillips. A delicious lunch and exclusive conversation with Executive Director Matthew Rembe provide guests with a personal touch to round out the experience.
Tickets $125 per person. Limited to 25 guests.
SPECIAL WALKING TOUR OF THE LOS POBLANOS BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS IN PARTNERSHIP WITH LOS POBLANOS HISTORIC INN & ORGANIC GARDEN
JOHN GAW MEEM is New Mexico’s most influential historic architect, known for his popularization of the Southwest regional style and for his historic preservation activities, who worked out of his Santa Fe office, from 1924-1959. The tour of the Los Poblanos Historic Inn and Organic Farm (1930-1933) highlights Meem’s elegant residential ranch style in Albuquerque’s magnificent pastoral North Valley. Located in Albuquerque’s bucolic North Valley on the banks of the Rio Grande. A tour is arranged of the farm, gardens, original Meem-designed ranch house (now an inn) and the elegant Meem-designed La Quinta Event Center.
GARDENS evolve shaped by the constraints of the climate and the needs of the community. They can be both ephemeral and a persistent map of the history of a place. A tour of the gardens of Los Poblanos meanders through time, through Old World crops, acequias that irrigate them, and livestock grazing, all introduced during the Spanish Colonial period, that expanded culinary horizons and remain part of the current culture. At Los Poblanos the gardens honor the past and embrace the future. Come along to experience echoes of the past and color and fragrance very much present.
This is a fundraising event in support of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society’s Laboratory of Anthropology Director’s Residence, home of the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum.
10:30 – 11:00 am. Meet at the silo at Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic Farm 4803 Rio Grande Blvd NW, Los Ranchos De Albuquerque, NM 87107. Mingle with guests over coffee before the walking tour begins.
11:00 am – 12:15 pm meander through the grounds with notable experts.
12:30 pm - 2:00 pm Enjoy a 3 course lunch at in La Quinta room and hear from art collector and LP Executive Director Matt Rembe.
SATURDAY, APRIL 12. 10:00AM AND 3:00PM
A DAY OF TOURS, TALKS, AND RECEPTIONS AT MUSEUM HILL’S ICONIC JOHN GAW MEEM DESIGNED LABORATORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND LABORATORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY’S DIRECTOR’S RESIDENCE.
Tickets $100 per person. Limited to 50 guests. Includes guided tour of Laboratory of Anthropology with light refreshments and afternoon talk with wine reception and book signing at Laboratory of Anthropology Director’s Residence. This is a fundraising event in support of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society’s Laboratory of Anthropology Director’s Residence, home of the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum.
EXCLUSIVE BEHIND THE SCENES TOUR OF THE LABORATORY OF ANTHROPOLOGY IN PARTNERSHIP WITH THE MUSEUM OF INDIAN ARTS AND CULTURE.
10:00 – 11:15 am. Meet at Laboratory of Anthropology’s Meem Auditorium. Mingle with guests over coffee and light pastries before being split into groups and toured through the building. 710 Camino Lejo, Milner Plaza, Museum Hill. Santa Fe.
How many times have you walked past the Laboratory of Anthropology on Museum Hill and wondered what was inside? Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 where it was described as an “architectural masterpiece,” the Laboratory of Anthropology opened in 1931 to national acclaim. Now operated by the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC), the building is home to MIAC’s Laboratory of Anthropology Library, Archives, offices, and more.
This exclusive behind the scenes tour will be led by MIAC’s Curator of Ethnology Tony Chavarria and Head of Curatorial Affairs Elisa Phelps who will take you through the magnificent Meem Auditorium, the Laboratory of Anthropology Library, and provide a peek at spaces not currently accessible to the public including elements of the original kitchen and offices once used to house researchers. Learn about the fascinating history of the Laboratory of Anthropology while appreciating the original tiles, light fixtures, woodwork, and furniture that were specially designed for the building.
A TALK WITH UNM REGENTS PROFESSOR OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE CHRIS WILSON.
3:00pm author talk; 4:00pm wine reception and book signing. Meet at Laboratory of Anthropology Director’s Residence/ Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum Sala. 750 Camino Lejo, Museum Hill. Santa Fe.
Did you know Spanish Colonial Arts Society’s Laboratory of Anthropology Director’s Residence, home of the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum, is the largest accessioned item in SCAS’s Permanent Collection? (Accession number 1999.011.) Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2023, this building is the companion building to the Laboratory of Anthropology, ultimately the only two buildings built of a planned “38-building research complex devoted to the anthropological study of Indigenous material culture of the region” in the late 1920s.
Meet Chris Wilson, author of Facing Southwest: The Life & Houses of John Gaw Meem, at NMHA who will deliver a talk about The Laboratory of Anthropology Director’s Residence/Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum in the context of John Gaw Meem’s career and approach to regional design. Attendees will be entered into a raffle to win rare out-of-print copies of Facing Southwest with the author available to sign winning copies at the reception.