swimmer.
Cecily had come to Santa Fe before the war with an escaped white Russian, the Countess Zena DeRossin. She bought Rancho Ancon out in Pojoaque, about 20 miles north of Santa Fe, which she and Zena ran as a sort of dude ranch playground. Parties were frequent and the guests many. Sometimes the party moved on for dinner and dancing at El Nido, a roadside restaurant and bar in Tesuque, a village just north of Santa Fe.
One memorable evening when things were going full tilt at El Nido, Fritzy Bard, another White Russian, a major in the WACS, and Zena DeRossin were talking animatedly in Russian when the FBI descended. Santa Fe was infested with agents during the war and for some years afterward because of Los Alamos. Poor Fritzy almost lost her commission and ended up in the brig over that one, but it was finally all straightened out when the FBI learned it was just innocent chitchat between two ex-patriot Russians who had barely escaped that country with their lives.
El Nido was run by the sure hand of Charlie Besre and the eagle eye of his wife, Mimi. Mimi employed her eagle eye at the cash register and kept the other eye on her husband, Charlie, who was known to have a weakness for les femmes.
El Nido was very popular. The food was exceptional, the bar generous, and it had one of only two dance floors handy to Santa Fe—the other was La Fonda.
6
La Fonda was still a Harvey House when I first knew it, and the waitresses wore the same kind of uniforms that they wore in the Judy Garland movie, albeit slightly modified. A very handsome Taos Indian hung around La Fonda—Old Joe, we called him. He’d let you take his picture for 25 cents, and I doubt there was a tourist that visited Santa Fe that didn’t have a shot of Old Joe tucked away in an album somewhere.
At that time, Shorty, dressed in a crisp white uniform, patrolled the streets around the Plaza with his cart, broom and dust pan. Nary the smallest scrap of paper escaped his broom. No one seemed to know his name or for whom he worked, but he certainly kept the Plaza clean.
La Fonda was so other-worldly that, upon entering, you felt that you had walked into a picture from a history book depicting another era. The floors were gleaming dark red tile. Heavy ceiling beams were incised with simple Indian geometrics which were painted in earth tones of amber, turquoise and red, as was all the wooden trim. Huge canvases painted by Gerald Cassidy hung from the smoothly-sculpted adobe walls. B.B. Dunn (Brian Boru Dunn) presided over all from his chair prominently placed in the lobby with a clear view of the entrance. He was a journalist and interviewed all comers whom he found intriguing, be they princess or pauper.
The furniture in La Fonda was massive, made and hand-carved by native artisans. The guest rooms had little corner beehive fireplaces and, on a chilly evening, they would be laid with piñon boughs to bring cheerful warmth to the rooms and waft their fragrance throughout the downtown.
B.B. Dunn was a slight man, bent a little with age. He had very pale white skin, little beady eyes behind bifocals, and a prominent, very long, skinny nose which reminded me of a proboscis on a hummingbird. In fact, he reminded me of a hummingbird, hurrying along, flittering to and fro whenever he wasn’t holding forth from his chair in La Fonda. He wore a very wide-brimmed hat, as large as a small umbrella, to shield his skin from the sun, and was frequently dressed all in white—a costume reminiscent of the Mexican peon uniform. He lived at the corner of Acequia Madre and Garcia Street in a cassita, part of an old adobe compound. In his house, a narrow archway shaped like a svelte hour glass led from the living room to the bathroom. He had an aversion to big women, did not want them hanging around, and this was his way of discouraging them.
There were a number of remittance men and some women in Santa Fe. Orphaned by their East Coast families in every way except financially, they had come West at the behest of their families because, for one reason or another, they had become a source of embarrassment. A favorite story among Santa Feans was the joke about the New Yorker whose wife had begun to behave peculiarly. The situation had gotten so bad that he was ashamed to take her out in public, yet he loved her dearly just the way she was and didn’t want her to change, so he consulted a psychiatrist. He explained his problem and confessed to the doctor his great love for his wife in spite of her strange behavior and begged the doctor for a solution. The great man thought for a moment, sighed and said, “I’ll tell you what to do. Take your wife to Santa Fe because there nobody will know the difference.”
One of Santa Fe’s remittance men was Horace Aiken who lived in a suite at La Fonda. It was said that, at one time, he had been a history professor. He was a tall, portly gentleman who was easily recognizable among the casually-dressed populace, because he always wore a bowler hat, a morning coat, dove gray vest, matching spats (long after they were passe) and shoes that glistened with polish. He carried a walking stick and he walked for miles every morning. He could be seen as far as the eastern limit of Canyon Road, away west on Alameda, and sometimes north, high on Artists Road that led up the mountain to Hyde Park.
He was very solemn and correct and always tipped his hat to the ladies. He was also a painter—quite a good one it became known when his excellent portrait of B.B. Dunn was hung in La Fonda’s lobby above B.B.’s favorite chair.
7
Canyon Road veered off Paseo de Peralta to the east toward the mountains and, until the late 50’s, had been mostly residential, although there were splotches of commercialism. There was a grocery and bar at 656, Gormley’s grocery, and the Canyon Road Bar, a little way farther up the road just beyond the intersection with Camino del Monte Sol. Spotted here and there were artists’ studios/galleries.
Eleanor Bedell was one of the first to move her store from downtown Sena Plaza to Canyon Road. She called her place simply The Shop and offered trash to treasure. She was quickly followed by Kay Stephens and her Santa Fe shirts which were expensive reproductions of the Mexican wedding shirt, Kathryn Kenton’s ladies boutique, and Abacus Bookstore.
The big change came to Canyon Road with the opening of Claude’s bar and restaurant about 1956. She had Jacques Cartier, who had an eye for style, to design the interior. A long, handsome bar dominated the front room where you entered. There were stools at the bar and two or three small tables against the wall opposite.
I remember John Crosby sitting alone at the bar, probably dreaming of plans for his Santa Fe Opera. Several of us were sitting at one of the small tables. The phone, which hung on the front wall next to the door, began ringing—the one behind the bar was ringing, too, but the bartender had gone to the cellar to fetch a special bottle of imported wine so there was no one to answer. We all shouted in unison, “John, answer the phone!” He looked at us and, slightly dazed, got up and answered the phone. It was a patron who wanted a reservation. John, straight-faced, listened, hung up and, without a word, walked back to the bar and wrote the information down on a cocktail napkin which he later gave to the bartender.
The large square room beyond the bar was the dining room with tables around the perimeter and a small dance floor in the center. The tables were clothed in white with small vases of bright fresh flowers in the center. An enormous fireplace occupied most of the far wall opposite the bar. Tongues of flame lazily crept up amongst the piñon logs nestled in the huge grate, issuing a cheery welcome to the diners.
Claude was an accomplished French cook. It was there that I was introduced to escargot. Coming from Missouri, I had not been exposed to that particular delicacy. “Snails!” I cried, shocked and horrified. Finally, I was persuaded to try them. Gingerly, I plucked one from its shell and, with great misgiving, tasted the rubbery critter. Well!!! They were certainly missing something in Missouri, and I became an immediate convert.
Claude’s
