We requested some comparatively new owners who’re additionally Santa Fe newcomers why they selected this metropolis and this time to arrange home and residential right here.
The fitting time for establishing roots
Brian Burrell and Kaitlyn Kimzey
Kaitlyn Kimzey and Brian Burrell say this was the precise time of their relationship and the precise time financially to make the leap into dwelling possession. “It is our means of constructing a dedication to Santa Fe,” says Kimzey, who met Burrell at their office a month after she arrived in Santa Fe from Colorado 4 years in the past
After they turned a pair, they casually checked out properties for round two years. With rates of interest low on the onset and through the pandemic, and every working from dwelling, Burrell and Kimzey determined that in the event that they have been ever going to go from informal to severe the time was proper.
“We each work in finance,” says Kimzey, “and felt charges have been going to go up.” So, in October 2021, they bought a house close to an arroyo path that results in Atalaya Peak and the mountain climbing trails close to St. John’s School. The outdoorsy pair had discovered their place, and their two Rhodesian Ridgebacks, Gigi and Paisley, are glad they did. Burrell views the situation of their new dwelling as “a pleasant compromise between being near city and just a little bit extra distant and quiet.”
Initially, the couple wished a move-in prepared dwelling however quickly realized that purchasing a home that wanted work wouldn’t solely save them cash, however would allow them to make the home their very own. “We began to search for one thing extra malleable,” says Kimzey, “and one thing we may develop into.” She provides, “I believe we’re going to be right here for a few years. It fits us.”
What appealed to Burrell have been the property’s many distinct outside areas. There’s a round space on the dwelling’s entrance, which they plan to make right into a social space with a firepit, and a country, wooden portal off the kitchen for outside eating. Yard options embody a filled-in-pool that is now a backyard, and a cabana the couple plans to make into storage room.
Burrell, who has a inexperienced thumb, has reworked struggling timber and shrubs into thriving ones by putting in an irrigation system. “I’m giving it just a little love and planting some extra issues. It’s nice to see issues pop up and develop,” he says. Kimzey quips, “We’re placing down roots, actually and figuratively,” and Burrell laughs in settlement.
The couple plans to finish some main renovations by Thanksgiving. Amongst them are elevating the ceilings and including sky lights, reconfiguring the house from 4 bedrooms to a few, and re-positioning the kitchen, baths and closets. Within the interim, they may proceed to hire within the Railyard District, an space that has served their young-professional way of life properly.
Tradition, shade and group
When Gianna Hernandez moved to Santa Fe from the Midwest to show biology on the Santa Fe Group School (SFCC), she discovered the choice to buy her first dwelling was a simple one. After exploring the rental market, she decided shopping for was the finest long-term choice. Even amid the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, she felt her transfer and residential buy have been proper for her.
Initially from Puerto Rico, Hernandez finds consolation within the similarity between the Spanish Colonial structure of Previous San Juan and that of Santa Fe. The usage of adobe and stucco right here gave her a way of dwelling from the beginning. Santa Fe’s pure panorama makes homeownership right here much more significant to Hernandez, a lifelong learner dedicated to the research of dwelling issues, but it surely’s the fundamentals that make day-to-day dwelling a pleasure to her.
Centrally situated, Hernandez’s new house is a five-minute stroll from native haunts like Backroad Pizza and the New Mexico Exhausting Cider Taproom. Ten minutes by automobile and he or she’s in her lab coat on the head of the category, instructing, constructing and increasing her college students’ data.
Over home made hummus, and within the firm of her 4 cats, Hernandez gave me a tour of her new digs, beginning with the comfy, fenced-in yard, already alive with burgeoning tomatoes and herbs. “I simply love the place. It’s good, it’s clear. I could make modifications, I could make it my very own. And the cash I spend and the work that I put into it can proceed to be my very own.”
Regardless of pandemic lockdowns and studying to reside in a brand new place, Hernandez discovered methods to attach with group. “I like that I can exit for walks, that I’m very near downtown, and that, once more, as a result of I’m near downtown, I’ve entry to quite a lot of the town’s tradition.”
Whether or not strolling her neighborhood, heading downtown seeking scrumptious meals or having fun with a path hike proper outdoors the town, Hernandez finds marvel in each path. Santa Fe’s shade, tradition and group affirm her conviction that she has made an awesome selection.
By Wendy Ilene Friedman
Peyton Zeller-Av and Sydney Benda
After practically two and a half years touring the nation in a revamped 40-square-foot van with their five-year-old shepherd-mix, Luli, latest newlyweds Peyton Zeller-Av and Sydney Benda knew they wished to place down roots. “That chapter of our lives [traveling] was carried out,” says Benda.
When COVID began, the previously Minneapolis-based couple briefly settled in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and stayed with family members through the lock-down and disruption to on a regular basis life. Zeller-Av admits that given the city’s small measurement, it wasn’t lengthy earlier than they started to get cabin fever. Throughout that point, he determined together with his then-fiancée, now-wife Sydney, that Santa Fe was the precise place for them.
Zeller-Av and Benda knew they have been carried out with huge cities and {that a} small city was, properly, too small. The Metropolis Completely different was a cheerful medium. They made a number of visits to the world to analyze and discover. Avid skiers and outside fanatics, the couple additionally knew that Northern New Mexico was a match their way of life.
“The van gave us trial intervals somewhere else, and we paid consideration to folks’s vitality,” says Benda, who thought Santa Fe had vibe. In addition they beloved the 380-acre Frank S. Ortiz Canine Park. However, it was their first New Mexico sundown that actually drew them in.
Thankfully, after two-plus years of rent-free dwelling and distant work — Zeller-Av is a software program developer and Benda is textile designer — the couple had the down cost and funds able to make a everlasting transfer. “It’s a really huge privilege,” Zeller-Av says in regards to the potential to earn a living from home and revel in monetary stability. The couple may reside and work anyplace.
With the assistance of an area realtor, they began to search for a house in Santa Fe remotely, through video excursions. “She took us on driving excursions via totally different neighborhoods earlier than we even obtained our funds collectively,” says Benda. “Then, when she confirmed us properties, she’d level out all the failings and the nice issues about them. [Our Santa Fe house] was our first dwelling buy, and the realtor helped us perceive each step of the method.”
The end result was a location they describe as “west of Zia Street, close to Ragle Park.” Says Zeller-Av, “We don’t actually know what it’s known as. Some folks have known as [it] the Candlelight neighborhood. Others have known as it ‘southwest metropolis.’”
Whatever the title, the neighborhood and the house checked all of the containers for the couple: three bedrooms, studio house, a visitor bed room, workplace house for every, a big kitchen and a yard for the canine. “We wished a spot that felt quiet, calm and secure,” says Benda.
And the canine is glad too. “If she may discuss, she’d say she loves it right here,” says Benda. “All of us chilled out once we settled right here.”
We requested some comparatively new owners who’re additionally Santa Fe newcomers why they selected this metropolis and this time to arrange home and residential right here.
The fitting time for establishing roots
Brian Burrell and Kaitlyn Kimzey
Kaitlyn Kimzey and Brian Burrell say this was the precise time of their relationship and the precise time financially to make the leap into dwelling possession. “It is our means of constructing a dedication to Santa Fe,” says Kimzey, who met Burrell at their office a month after she arrived in Santa Fe from Colorado 4 years in the past
After they turned a pair, they casually checked out properties for round two years. With rates of interest low on the onset and through the pandemic, and every working from dwelling, Burrell and Kimzey determined that in the event that they have been ever going to go from informal to severe the time was proper.
“We each work in finance,” says Kimzey, “and felt charges have been going to go up.” So, in October 2021, they bought a house close to an arroyo path that results in Atalaya Peak and the mountain climbing trails close to St. John’s School. The outdoorsy pair had discovered their place, and their two Rhodesian Ridgebacks, Gigi and Paisley, are glad they did. Burrell views the situation of their new dwelling as “a pleasant compromise between being near city and just a little bit extra distant and quiet.”
Initially, the couple wished a move-in prepared dwelling however quickly realized that purchasing a home that wanted work wouldn’t solely save them cash, however would allow them to make the home their very own. “We began to search for one thing extra malleable,” says Kimzey, “and one thing we may develop into.” She provides, “I believe we’re going to be right here for a few years. It fits us.”
What appealed to Burrell have been the property’s many distinct outside areas. There’s a round space on the dwelling’s entrance, which they plan to make right into a social space with a firepit, and a country, wooden portal off the kitchen for outside eating. Yard options embody a filled-in-pool that is now a backyard, and a cabana the couple plans to make into storage room.
Burrell, who has a inexperienced thumb, has reworked struggling timber and shrubs into thriving ones by putting in an irrigation system. “I’m giving it just a little love and planting some extra issues. It’s nice to see issues pop up and develop,” he says. Kimzey quips, “We’re placing down roots, actually and figuratively,” and Burrell laughs in settlement.
The couple plans to finish some main renovations by Thanksgiving. Amongst them are elevating the ceilings and including sky lights, reconfiguring the house from 4 bedrooms to a few, and re-positioning the kitchen, baths and closets. Within the interim, they may proceed to hire within the Railyard District, an space that has served their young-professional way of life properly.
Tradition, shade and group
When Gianna Hernandez moved to Santa Fe from the Midwest to show biology on the Santa Fe Group School (SFCC), she discovered the choice to buy her first dwelling was a simple one. After exploring the rental market, she decided shopping for was the finest long-term choice. Even amid the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, she felt her transfer and residential buy have been proper for her.
Initially from Puerto Rico, Hernandez finds consolation within the similarity between the Spanish Colonial structure of Previous San Juan and that of Santa Fe. The usage of adobe and stucco right here gave her a way of dwelling from the beginning. Santa Fe’s pure panorama makes homeownership right here much more significant to Hernandez, a lifelong learner dedicated to the research of dwelling issues, but it surely’s the fundamentals that make day-to-day dwelling a pleasure to her.
Centrally situated, Hernandez’s new house is a five-minute stroll from native haunts like Backroad Pizza and the New Mexico Exhausting Cider Taproom. Ten minutes by automobile and he or she’s in her lab coat on the head of the category, instructing, constructing and increasing her college students’ data.
Over home made hummus, and within the firm of her 4 cats, Hernandez gave me a tour of her new digs, beginning with the comfy, fenced-in yard, already alive with burgeoning tomatoes and herbs. “I simply love the place. It’s good, it’s clear. I could make modifications, I could make it my very own. And the cash I spend and the work that I put into it can proceed to be my very own.”
Regardless of pandemic lockdowns and studying to reside in a brand new place, Hernandez discovered methods to attach with group. “I like that I can exit for walks, that I’m very near downtown, and that, once more, as a result of I’m near downtown, I’ve entry to quite a lot of the town’s tradition.”
Whether or not strolling her neighborhood, heading downtown seeking scrumptious meals or having fun with a path hike proper outdoors the town, Hernandez finds marvel in each path. Santa Fe’s shade, tradition and group affirm her conviction that she has made an awesome selection.
By Wendy Ilene Friedman
Peyton Zeller-Av and Sydney Benda
After practically two and a half years touring the nation in a revamped 40-square-foot van with their five-year-old shepherd-mix, Luli, latest newlyweds Peyton Zeller-Av and Sydney Benda knew they wished to place down roots. “That chapter of our lives [traveling] was carried out,” says Benda.
When COVID began, the previously Minneapolis-based couple briefly settled in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and stayed with family members through the lock-down and disruption to on a regular basis life. Zeller-Av admits that given the city’s small measurement, it wasn’t lengthy earlier than they started to get cabin fever. Throughout that point, he determined together with his then-fiancée, now-wife Sydney, that Santa Fe was the precise place for them.
Zeller-Av and Benda knew they have been carried out with huge cities and {that a} small city was, properly, too small. The Metropolis Completely different was a cheerful medium. They made a number of visits to the world to analyze and discover. Avid skiers and outside fanatics, the couple additionally knew that Northern New Mexico was a match their way of life.
“The van gave us trial intervals somewhere else, and we paid consideration to folks’s vitality,” says Benda, who thought Santa Fe had vibe. In addition they beloved the 380-acre Frank S. Ortiz Canine Park. However, it was their first New Mexico sundown that actually drew them in.
Thankfully, after two-plus years of rent-free dwelling and distant work — Zeller-Av is a software program developer and Benda is textile designer — the couple had the down cost and funds able to make a everlasting transfer. “It’s a really huge privilege,” Zeller-Av says in regards to the potential to earn a living from home and revel in monetary stability. The couple may reside and work anyplace.
With the assistance of an area realtor, they began to search for a house in Santa Fe remotely, through video excursions. “She took us on driving excursions via totally different neighborhoods earlier than we even obtained our funds collectively,” says Benda. “Then, when she confirmed us properties, she’d level out all the failings and the nice issues about them. [Our Santa Fe house] was our first dwelling buy, and the realtor helped us perceive each step of the method.”
The end result was a location they describe as “west of Zia Street, close to Ragle Park.” Says Zeller-Av, “We don’t actually know what it’s known as. Some folks have known as [it] the Candlelight neighborhood. Others have known as it ‘southwest metropolis.’”
Whatever the title, the neighborhood and the house checked all of the containers for the couple: three bedrooms, studio house, a visitor bed room, workplace house for every, a big kitchen and a yard for the canine. “We wished a spot that felt quiet, calm and secure,” says Benda.
And the canine is glad too. “If she may discuss, she’d say she loves it right here,” says Benda. “All of us chilled out once we settled right here.”
