Voir Visits Casa San Ysidro

Casa San Ysidro
The Gutierrez-Minge House
http://www.nps.gov/elca/learn/education/upload/Teacher-Resource-Guide_Casa-San-Ysidro_sm.pdf

Casa San Ysidro is in the old farming village of Corrales, New Mexico.

The first settlers were farmers and sheep ranchers.

This tradition led to the village being dedicated to 

San Ysidro, the patron saint of farmers.

The Gutierrez family donated land to rebuild the church

and graveyard on higher land when the original church was destroyed by

the flood of 1860.

The Gutierrez built their home in a space that is now across

the narrow two-lane road. Their home was built in the
New Mexico Territorial style in the 1870's.
The original home is now the kitchen, the dining room,the parlor, 

the two bedrooms, and the breezeway.

When visiting the home,

this is clearly a main living area under one roof.
The parlor is to the right of the front door.

The kitchen and dining room are to the left of the front door.

An inside hallway lined up with the door has several bedrooms

along the side walls.

The kitchen is a lowered room, leaving some room

between the lower window sill and the floor.

The dining room is behind the window that is fully shown.

Both of these windows are to the left of the door.

  In 1952, Alan and Shirley Minge purchased the Gutierrez

house and started to restore it. Between 1961 and 1971 

they built a placita style Spanish Colonial house with a courtyard.

They collected New Mexican artifacts to fill the rooms.

By the 1980's, they had added a corral and several other

outbuildings, including a cookhouse and a bunkhouse.
In 1996, the Minge family donated the property to the

Albuquerque Museum, who now arranges scheduled touring times

and allows for its use by Corrales for festival or event days.

Voir was happy to hear that a local historic home would be open

for free on Saturday. The even focused on a black smith,

but docents were around the property providing information

about the rooms.

We entered the gate and wandered around the courtyard

and some of the inside rooms.
Photography is not allowed inside the rooms,

but it is allowed on the outside property,

so my inside photos are limited to what I could find online.

Voir was fine with that. It was her day to get her picture taken!

The room behind the door and wall below on the back wall

of the courtyard is the Sala Grande, or great room.

The beams were from a church, and the inside

space feels very much like a historic New Mexico church.

Now it can also be used for meetings.

This room has visibly higher ceilings than the other rooms,

much like a church.

The door shown below opens to the hallway

that is off the end to the left of my above photo.

The room shown below is a weaving room.

Voir and I hung out for awhile in the courtyard.

ADAD Deep

One quiet item of interest are the Spanish Colonial lanterns

that hang from the portal. Josefina has a decorated version

of lanterns like these.

There is a also a bell along the roof line.

The center of the courtyard has a garden

with a stone path through the middle.

We finally wandered out to the back yard with the outbuildings,

which include two log cabin buildings called the cookhouse and the bunkhouse.

Outhouse, anyone?

There is a more open black smith building that has a table

to the side and is used for education.

The free event was to watch and learn about black smiths

and their work, so this room actually had a small group of people

watching and learning! As a photographer, I would have preferred to have

photographed the cabinet of educational historic items without the man sitting in front of it,

and the black smith without the boy who was so interested!
Ah..but it was free to get in, so I'm not complaining!

We went back to the main courtyard.

Anything else to photograph?

How to use a tiny doll
to cover up the people who would otherwise
be in my  photo.

Is it time to leave?

 Hmm...the ADAD theme for the day was "deep".

Did we tell you that horno ovens are deep?

Adios, Casa San Ysidro!!!

I parked in the church parking lot across the street,

so it is inevitable that I photographed it!

I love New Mexico!

I'm so glad you don't make me brush my hair.

Do you think it is going to rain AGAIN?

I thought New Mexico had blue skies....