HISTORIC HACIENDA IN GALISTEO

Later came the various movies and series filmed in and around Galisteo—Silverado, No Country for Old Men, Thor, Crazy Heart, Appaloosa and Godless. And while the 1950s saw the formation of the large ranches (Cook, San Cristobal), the breaking up of those ranches started in the 1980s. Before that, though, there were the Ortiz y Pino families and the Hobacks.

Built in 1850 as part of Don Jose Ortiz y Pino’s sheepherding empire, and located directly across what once served as barracks for U.S. Army soldiers, 10 Via La Puente also served originally as a meeting place and general store and, since the Hobacks moved in in the 1970s, as a gallery and art studios. As described in the Galisteo Community Plan back in 2012, after Juan Ortiz I died in 1865, “his widow, son and daughter moved to Galisteo and lived in ‘The Hacienda,’ now on the corner of NM 41 and Via La Puente. Juan Ortiz II opened a successful mercantile in Galisteo, became a prominent citizen and married two of Nicolas Pino’s daughters, beginning the ‘Ortiz y Pino’ lineage. Juan’s son, Jose Ortiz y Pino I [also known as “Don Jose”], became a ‘sheep baron’ and Galisteo’s patron, with his headquarters across from the Hacienda on Via La Puente.

When he died in 1951, his vast estate was broken up and parts of the land were divided among family members, but much was eventually sold off.” Behind the gallery out front (and its adjacent studio space, which has a root cellar), the house itself has two wings: one with a single bedroom and bathroom and the other with two bedrooms and bathrooms. There’s a large library, formal dining room and fireplaces. There are wood floors throughout, a cozy kitchen where Hoback and her mother Rosalea Murphy used to cook for guests and other Galisteans. Outside, there are fruit trees, cottonwoods, a willow in the courtyard area (which has a pond with koi in it), an horno and a covered outbuilding for storage. As Berkshire Hathaway Realtor (and longtime Galisteo resident) Elayne Patton puts it, “It embodies the essence of oldworld New Mexico. You can feel its history.”

Hoback, whose artist daughter Denise Lynch now lives there, named her new home, stable, studio and gallery Quartermill Farm, and some of the buildings, as Hoback wrote in her memoir, might date to the 1860s but most were built around the turn of the 20th century during the heyday of the property’s last patron. Unlike Santa Fe, though, Galisteo has no historic preservation rules. “Whoever buys this house is going to be someone who loves history, who loves provenance and loves the property,” says Patton. “This place, and Galisteo,” adds Patton, who’s lived nearby since the late 80s, “it’s all about the environment and history. And the community.”