Authentic pueblo style never looked so good
Classic New Mexico Homes construct another timeless masterpiece
BY BETHANY CONWAY
The Las Cruces Bulletin
Stepping into a home by Wayne and Kiki Suggs is almost like stepping back in time – experiencing an authentic style that has been a part of New Mexico archi tecture for thousands of years.
Though Picacho Mountain has featured homes with cutting-edge technology never before seen in Las Cruces, the Suggs’ newest creation at 1316 Estancia Real has taken the subdivision back to a time when pueblos ruled.
From its soft, free-form adobe walls, buttresses and bancos to its indigenous materials such as saltillo tile and flagstone, the home is what many of those moving to Las Cruces would expect to find in the desert Southwest.
“For someone who truly wants a classic pueblo-style home, these are the builders that can create it,” said Kaye Miller of Steinborn GMAC Real Estate.
When they set out to build the 3,000-square-foot home, the Suggs knew they wanted to create something excep tional.
“This home is a very special home,” Wayne Suggs said, “and Picacho Mountain is a great subdivision.” From the very beginning, he designed the house to fit perfectly on its sloping lot amidst the desert landscape.
“It doesn’t get any better than the landscape that’s already here,” he said.
Because traditional pueblos always had several dimen sions, the sloping lot presented the perfect opportunity to create a home that has four levels to its floor plan; one level contains the loft, one contains the main living spaces, one contains the foyer and the last contains the master bedroom and office.
“If you look at the Taos Pueblo, you have all of these different levels,” he said. But while the idea was always to make the home traditional pueblo, its influences don’t end there.
“We also brought in not only the New Mexican influ ence, but the Mexican influence as well,” he said. “A lot of the colors that we used are traditional Mexican colors.”
Once the Southwest abode – complete with a loft – was ready for its interior elements, it was Kiki Suggs who gave the home its colorful personality.
“The primary Mexican colors are terra cotta, cobalt blue, yellow and green, so this house has a lot of those,” she said.
From the loft’s puppet-show style shelf to the office’s heavy wooden window looking out on the hallway, there also are many pieces sh
“doctored-up,” which work to bring the house to life.
“We like to incorporate cool little things,” she said.
Perhaps the most impressive element in the home is all of the woodwork, which was done as a collaborative effort between Wayne Suggs and Greg Duff.
“This is the second home that Greg Duff has worked on with us,” Wayne Suggs said. A builder formerly located in Colorado, Duff came into contact with the Suggs at a job site in Hatch and they immediately hit it off.
“He is unbelievable, and he has always built homes similar to ours,” Wayne Suggs said. “His cabinets fit so well into our homes.”
With Duff’s help, the Suggs were able to create an unforgettable kitchen.
“This is my most favorite kitchen that we have ever done,” Wayne Suggs said.
From the cabinets to the breakfast nook to the huge island, everything in the kitchen was made custom, creating an entire package of Southwest elegance. Other than a cobalt blue Viking oven and range, they hid all of the technology so that its traditional beauty would shine through.
“We try and do the modern stuff, but just so that you don’t notice it so much,” Kiki Suggs said.
Underneath one of the kitchen’s smooth skylights, she also added a touch of the outdoors with an indoor garden area.
“It has a drain and it’s on a drip irrigation system, so it’s completely maintenance free,” she said. “It adds so much to this room.”
While the kitchen makes its own statement, all of the main living spaces blend seamlessly together, culminat ing in a raised loft.
“This is intended to be an artist’s loft, but of course you can use it as an office, you can put a pool table up here – you can do a lot of stuff,” Kiki Suggs said. They even included a storage area big enough to hold large canvases.
Found on the first level of the home, the master bed room and office wouldn’t be complete if they didn’t have some luxuries of their own. According to Kiki Suggs, the office’s flagstone floor brings in another traditional ele ment of the pueblo style.
“We usually put at least one flagstone floor in our homes, because in the old days they would just keep adding on and adding on to their homes and they would use any material they could get their hands on. So when you switch things up like that, even though we know the home is new, it still gives it that old-house feel.
“We don’t want people to come in and know when a house was built. We try to make our houses to where you have no idea. It could have been built in the ’30s or the ’80s or now.”
A redwood ceiling gives the master bedroom contrast, and its patio doors lead to a quiet place to enjoy the view.
“It’s got a really nice little porch that leads down to a little patio where you can put a fire pit or a hot tub later,” Kiki Suggs said.
The master bathroom is also a sight with its bright red and green shades and a shower made private by a heavy adobe-style wall.
“We always do really colorful showers that are a lot of fun,” she said. A claw-foot tub, custom toilet paper holder and custom cabinetry made to hide any electrical outlets all add to the ambiance.
Of course, along with all of the stylish elements, with its 18-inch thick double-framed walls, the buyer who ends up with this baby knows they are getting more bang for their buck.
“They are incredibly good builders, and you know you are buying a well-built home,” Miller said. “They think of everything.”
