Thanks, jakabedy, that was a real treat.

I like the kitchen as is, wouldn't yank out a thing, I like carpeting in the house too, not dusty rose, but the texture works fine.

Love the house. Our house which is in SF bay area is adobe as well and it is ranch style with distinctive mid century feel to it. Cliff May was the architect who popularized ranch style homes and he loved to use adobe bricks in his designs. The sunset house head quarters was designed by him as was the house from the Nancy Myers movie ''It's Complicated''. I love the decor in that movie! The unpainted brick and tile works well with clean lines of MCM furniture.

GWlolo -

I love those early Cliff May ranch houses. He got that Cali ranch vernacular thing down, and eased in the MCM components over time.

move me in and color me "home"!!

move me in and color me "home"!!

A fun reminder of southwest living for me, I grew up in AZ and loved adobe houses.
I did notice that this house has more heavy duty locks, solid steel doors and grated entries than what I see in the Baltimore area. I didn't expect to see that. That surprises me.

cooperbailey - It's very common here.

You leave the wrought iron door closed and open the wooden one behind it to let the breezes in and keep the wildlife out (2 and 4-legged).

And despite the bucolic name, Corrales is in the ABQ mwetro area and close to i-25.

I like it.
I think it started out as just the circular portion since that is a complete "house". Even if it was built all at the same time, it is two distinct parts.

Even the rose colored carpet works with the overall palette of the house. I wouldn't keep it, but it doesn't bother me.

Jakabedy, thanks so much for posting this. Our 1965 long ranch in southern NM has some similar materials; some exposed adobe brick, and wooden beamed ceilings, although without the intriguing wagon wheel design of this home. And yes, we had the dated carpet, although ours was pale yellow, and rusty orange, not dusty pink.

Our home does not have the generously sized doors and doorways that make this home so solid and striking. Also, ours was built with more formica, swirly pink cultured marble, and annoying popcorn.

We had original iron grills over all the windows, but we removed those when we restored the adobe exterior, as they completely blocked emergency exit (and made cleaning the windows nearly impossible.) I agree with lazygardens, this is a common detail here too, and I think it was often included as much for stylistic reasons as for security.

IâÂÂm finding the character of this home a bit harder to deal with, than others we have owned. Our progress has been slow in figuring out how to hit the right notes, and we've stayed paralyzed in the major areas. Sometimes I feel like it doesnâÂÂt know who it wants to be...mid-century, or southwestern. Kind of an interesting but challenging hybrid. It was helpful to see such a good example of what our home probably âÂÂwantedâ to be, when it was custom built in 1965. Great to see such a clear picture (with all the original finishes!) of what the goal was.

Our home feels rather maze-like, and IâÂÂve been working on a post for input, regarding carefully opening some kitchen walls. Peering at these photos has been very helpful. I can see that key openings help tremendously in making one area âÂÂfeelâ more visually open to the next, in this house. It will help us with our thinking.

So glad you found this and posted it here.

Lazygardens is right, Corrales is near Albuquerque. North of it actually. Not a whole lot of crime there. Quiet, peaceful and, yes, bucolic.

Interesting home. I'm not crazy about the Saltillo tiles floors. I had them in my last home and they were a PIA to keep up. Not crazy about the rose carpeting either (LOL), but love their unpainted adobe walls. Did you notice the beautiful brick design in one of the living room's(?) walls? I've never seen anything like that before. Very unique and lovely!
I personally don't like the layout, although I agree that it's a pretty home. The lots are fairly large in Corrales, many on at least half an acre, but because there are so many huge mature trees, the views are mainly of your own property and that of your close neighbors. IMO, there's not enough windows in this house and too many inside views that face the kiva-like inner wall. Still, it's quite an interesting house!
Lynn

I love adobe and traditional (looking) southwestern homes; but I think melding the traditional SW look with modern or contemporary styles can be very tricky and not always successful. My home is a contemporary southwestern--basic builder style which isn't too bad, but I really don't much like the fancy Phoenix modern ones.

The listed home is nice, but I've seen better. I think the pastel southwestern color scheme is very dated and cliche.

Lynn, about 1/3 of our house is the old Saltillo tile, and I agree they're different to clean (most mops or vacuums are not much help with the extreme peaks and valleys of these bumpy old floors.) Not sure what I will do when I'm too old to get on my hands and knees to clean them. But, fortunately I love the handmade, irregular, weathered look, so all is forgiven. For now. :-)

Our house is too way too dark for modern tastes (low-pitched roof, deep eaves with carved rafter tails.) I suspect if I strolled through the Corrales home, especially the round portion, I'd have the same feeling, and same objection.

We are eyeing Solatubes as a way to bring in light, without overly changing the character. Some days I feel like a mole in a tunnel. Cozy is good, but so is light.

Violet.West, I have to agree, I think melding styles with southwestern is tricky. Around here there are many new homes where the builder has veered away from the simplicity of traditional southwestern materials, into complicated, over-the-top shapes and treatments that start to look...to me... like too much. ItâÂÂs like they just take it too far, and end up with a cartoon-like caricature of the older building styles. I think itâÂÂs really easy to fall into doing this.

I'd really like to know, if you folks had to move into this house tomorrow, what general guidelines would you use to furnish it? (You can pretend the dusty rose carpeting isn't there, since I think it's kind of distracting.)

Would you lean towards retro or mid-century furnishings? Sexy, sleek Danish modern tables and chairs? Clean lines, bold retro textiles and rugs, modern light fixtures? Glass tables? Round globe pendant fixtures? Sixties abstract paintings?

Or, would you lean towards southwestern carved tables and chairs, leather nail-head sofas, ethnic fabrics, weathered paint, navajo rugs, pueblo pottery, carved santos, bronze sculptures?

Or, would you try to avoid either of the above directions, hoping you can land somewhere in the middle, and not be a muddle?

(Welcome to my world, lol.) Seriously, I'd love to know.

Local Ethnic or vernacular antiques/vintage(20s spanish revival, mission) mixed with fairly spare contemporary from the 60s to the present, but nothing "mod" 60s or 70s--classic contemporary.

Maybe some good midcentury spanish revival, although there was a lot of bad midcentury spanish revival to be avoided.

This post was edited by palimpsest on Wed, Sep 4, 13 at 18:16

Nothing says "I just moved here" faster than an entire house of "Southwestern style". And trying to force a strongly Pueblo boned house into Mid-Century Modern usually flops. I think it's the proportions.

I would go eclectic ... It's not hard to imagine the merger of a couple of households where one had some nice East Coast antiques and the other had a few family pieces from Taos or Chimayo. And they like art of all kinds, good textiles from wherever, so they have some Persian rugs on the floors or walls, comfortable modern or rustic modern seating.

Chinoiserie accents work very well with SW style - unsurprising, because the Acapulco-Philippines trade was bringing Chinese porcelains, silks, and lacquer wares into Mexico from the early years.

Palimpsest and lazygardens, thanks so much for your helpful replies. Eclectic is how we roll, so thatâÂÂs reassuring. Also, Mission/vernacular/locally made antique and vintage pieces appeal to us. I just didnâÂÂt expect to be so confused about how to work with this style home.

I would never have considered Chinoiserie accents, and I find that interesting and freeing. Persian rugs do seem to fit.

The only hesitation I have is with Spanish Revival, but I think thatâÂÂs because IâÂÂve probably only seen bad stuff, not good. I need to do more research. I think the black iron exterior light fixtures that came with our home would be described as midcentury Spanish Revival (only so-so quality.) I have mixed feelings about them. ThereâÂÂs also a black iron fixture chandelier in the dining room that some might love, but it reminds me of Dracula. (I think I have some issues with this style, lol.)

This thread helps me a lot. (Thank you Jakabedy.)

Found the home amazing, when looking at individual photos, but, on closer examination of the layout, I feel the addition has significantly disrupted the flow of the home. If you drive in the garage with groceries, for example, you directly enter and have to completely cross through the living room, then the entry, then through the entire family room before entering the hall and turning into the kitchen. Whew! Maybe that is the norm in that area, but would not fly well around here, and regardless seems like poor planning. But it was fascinating to see! Thank you!