Month: December 2024

Once Fuller Lodge was completed and the ranch school “moved in”, AJ Connell was able to indulge in what was almost a fantasy of rough outdoor living combined with an elegant evening schedule of dressing for dinner and an almost Oxford like “high table” manner. Connell was quoted more than once in saying The Los Alamos Ranch School was meant to be an “Outpost of Civilization”. Fuller Lodge was the pinnacle of that outpost in the mind of Connell and many of the school masters.

It isn’t difficult to see why they’d think that. Keep in mind that what we currently tend to think of as the “front” of Fuller Lodge was originally the back. The wide porch which faces the rose garden, the sweeping lawn, and unfortunately the back of the post office, was the “front” of Fuller Lodge. As viewed in the photo below, it was a gorgeous facade back in the day. Without the barrier of Central Park Square, the east facing portico of Fuller Lodge provided an unfettered view of the sunrise over the Sangre de Cristos. If you stand on the lawn nowand close your eyes you’d still probably have a tough time imagining acres worth of irrigated fields stretching from Fuller Lodge toward the edge of the mesa as far as the eye could see.

While it is still striking, it’s hard for a modern mind to imagine an entire troop of mounted boy scouts pulling up their horses on the road in front of the portico to strut their stuff for graduation day!

Evenings began with the bell perched atop the roof calling the boys and the masters for the evening meal. With clean faces and pressed uniforms, the boys would gather in front of the stone fireplace in the anteroom. There they could read or chat as they waited for the houseboys, (yes, Connell hired young boys from the surrounding pueblos to perform this role) to open the big sliding doors between the anteroom and the dining hall. When the doors opened, the boys would calmly and with decorum (always, I’m sure!) go to their assigned tables. Each table of 8 boys was presided over by a master who was also in charge of the conversation topics. Let’s say the table conversation was probably NOT what you’d usually expect of grade school boys.

There was considerable worry about kitchen fires in log cabin structures. With an eye toward safety, the kitchen at Fuller Lodge was located just off the dining hall in a stone structure which can be seen in this rear view below. That wasn’t an uncommon way of handling kitchens in general until sometime in the late 1900s.

When the dining hall wasn’t being used for meals three times each day of the week, the staff would stash tables and chairs in the surrounding rooms and host other events. The LARS band often played and Connell would invite girls from other schools in Santa Fe to come up and give his rough riding boy scouts experience in the finer points of dancing, conversation, and probably even flirtation!

The photo below of a Valentines Day dance in the Pajarito Room (as the dining room has always been called) shows the original enormous elk head which used to hang above the big fireplace. I’ve always found it amusing that the elk head eventually got moved at the request of the housekeeper who apparently found it near impossible to keep the moths from setting up house inside the thing! You can read more about the girls’ school in Santa Fe in a previous post HERE.

One of the coolest offerings at Fuller Lodge was the frequency of theater productions. In fact, the founder of the Santa Fe Opera made his theatrical debut here in Los Alamos on the stage at Fuller Lodge in 1940. John Crosby performed admirably, by all reports, in H.M.S. Pinafore! Seriously, sometimes we are just so trendy without realizing it. After all, years later Oppenheimer performed with the Los Alamos Little Theater in one of their wartime era productions. I suppose this is only a taste of what AJ Connell envisioned as life on the Pajarito Plateau being the cradle of civilized entertainment and pursuits in Northern New Mexico!

Another interesting piece of the original Fuller Lodge layout was a room just adjacent to the entry hall. The bright space has gone by several names over the decades, but it’s original name was the “Smoking Room”. Believe it or not, ranch school students were allowed to smoke as long as they observed a few rules.

1. Smokers had to be a minimum of 17 years of age.
2. Parents had to give written permission verifying the student was allowed to smoke.
3. Smoking would be allowed only after meals.
4. Smoking should NEVER be done in front of younger boys, (presumably younger than 17), who were not allowed inside the smoking room to begin with.

The name of the Smoking Room was eventually changed to the “Sportsmen’s Room” as it was the official meeting space for the Angler’s and Shooting Clubs. Then Connell finally named the room after Fayette Curtis who was the first teacher and headmaster of the ranch school.

The second floor of the lodge was more of a mezzanine style because the Pajarito Room was two stories. The headmaster and the school matron both had suites on the second floor. The school nurse had a small suite up there and the school infirmary was located in a room above the main lobby at the north end of the building which is now referred to as the “Throne Room”, (more about THAT next time!).

Connell had a sitting room and sleeping quarters on the north end of the third floor of Fuller Lodge. This third floor location offered Connell incredible views of the countryside through the windows, but during the hottest months he would sometimes occupy one of the seasonally vacant master’s quarters in order to avoid sweltering in the summer heat! Can you imagine being up on the third floor at night with no air conditioning or electric fans? Yikes!

The bell of Fuller Lodge was made by the Meneely Bell Company of Troy, New York. The bell pull dropped down from the bell tower on the roof to a spot just outside the kitchen. When it was time to summon the boys for meals, one of the kitchen staff would just reach over the pull the braided cord. It seems sort of sad that this outpost of civilization and such a unique experience for growing up young men only lasted 14 years before a whole new outfit came to Los Alamos.

As we come to the end of the ranch school days at Fuller Lodge, I encourage you to take a walk around Ashley Pond to enjoy the beautiful lights. Then have a look at Fuller Lodge and imagine it filled with holiday gatherings and excitement. Then you might want to take a moment and be amazed that Fuller Lodge has seen around 97 holiday seasons. And when you’re pausing to appreciate the beauty of the first homes in Los Alamos, give me a call! I love chatting about the unique and sometimes quirky homes here in Los Alamos. It’s even better when I can help folks find their dream home here on the Pajarito Plateau!

Happy Holidays, Los Alamos!

I always find the holidays to a be the perfect time to wax poetic about Fuller Lodge. I think this painting by Secundino Sandoval helps illustrate why. The lodge just looks cool in snow, and it’s even better lit up for Christmas!

I think the first question most of us wonder is why Fuller Lodge? Why not Connell Lodge, or Pond Lodge (except that sounds a bit odd), or even Pajarito Lodge? The short answer is that the Fuller family provided most of the funds needed to build the lodge. They also heavily supported the school when Ashley Pond’s circumstances were such that he no longer could. Philo Fuller, Edward P Fuller’s father, wholeheartedly took on the role of primary shareholder and supporter.

Edward P Fuller died in 1923. He’d first come to Los Alamos in 1917 as a guest of Ashley Pond at the Pajarito Club when the school was still a guest ranch. Edward had struggled with Polio for most of his life and the climate in New Mexico agreed with him far more than that of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Fuller’s family had made their fortune in furniture manufacturing. Philo had been glad his son found so much satisfaction in healthy living and being on horseback for most of each day. While Edward wasn’t healthy enough to do physical labor and struggled with physical movement, he was fond of horses and was highly proficient in the saddle. He also proved to have a good way with the younger boys and became both supervisor and father figure to the youngest students so far away from home.

I think a modern mindset looks at Fuller Lodge and feels like it belongs to Los Alamos, as though it’s always been here and always will be here. But in the beginning, Connell had to argue pretty hard for the need to build such an enormous structure. He had issues with the mortgage holder, but once he slogged through the legal issues and got the go ahead from Philo Fuller, the next step was to find an architect.

Connell consulted Hazel Pond, who immediately recommended John Gaw Geem. The Brazilian born architect had a civil engineering degree from the Virginia Military Institute and had a passion for New Mexico that he brought with him to his designs. Meem’s detailed plans for the lodge included the bell tower, designs for the lamps which would be needed in the portico, and even the specific dimensions for all 771 logs needed to complete the building!

Can you imagine? 771 logs. Each log specifically hewn to fit in precise order. Connell and Meem gained permission from the Forest Service to cut logs and quarry stone from the Jemez Mountains. The stonework at Fuller Lodge is actually made from the lightweight Bandelier tuff we see so frequently in our region.

Connell and a representative from the Santa Fe National Forest spent a good deal of time in the foothills west of the school choosing each tree. I find it so interesting that Connell actually made a habit of unmarking certain trees like a sort of Robin Hood of the forest because he felt the trees were necessary to the landscape and aesthetic of the school. So if the forest ranger marked a tree for use that Connell disagreed with, Connell would sneak out after dark and unmark it so he could choose one he thought was a better fit!

Trees were felled in the summer of 1927 and a sawmill of sorts was set up on the school property in order to get the building materials ready for the lodge construction.

I find these images of the construction absolutely fascinating. These photos and more are available for you to have in Craig Martin and Heather McClenahan’s book, Of Logs and Stone, which you can pick up at the History Museum shop. I highly encourage you to pick up a copy of this book for your collection if you have any interest in the history of our area.

Later in 1927, Connell received a message from a man named George Teats. Teats was a contractor in Rocky Ford, Colorado. His crew had just completed a recreation hall at the Conejos Recreation Association and had experience with the construction of log structures. Meem went to check out Teats recently completed project and declared this to be a good match for Connell’s vision. In May of 1928, Teats and his crew moved to the Pajarito Plateau and that’s when things took off!

Meem periodically visited the site to make adjustments to design and methods. He seemed especially concerned with the interior. Meem even had several of the logs sawn in half and hollowed out to create recessed areas for conduits and other piping and structural necessities.

Construction was completed in 1929. Teats sent a bill to Meem for $33,450.00. Meem paid the bill and added a 5% fee to cover his firm’s costs for planning, engineering, and supervision. The total bill from Meem was $1600.00. Which means Fuller Lodge “cost” under $35K to build, though I cannot imagine what materials would have cost then and now. The fact that the school could draw materials from the surrounding land is probably the only reason we now have a beautiful public facility which is still in use almost a hundred years later!

The construction of Fuller Lodge was truly a labor of love. While John Gaw Meem didn’t make a ton of cash off the deal, the lodge became a hallmark of his style and capabilities and really boosted his career in architecture. The building perfectly blended AJ Connell’s vision of a rustic school which excelled at developing intelligent, academically gifted outdoorsmen. Classical education meets rustic living at it’s finest! And of course, Fuller Lodge continues to be a symbol of our history here in Los Alamos. We’ll talk a bit more about the Lodge through the years in the next few weeks. What other “house” in Los Alamos deserves such a special place in our holiday season?

If you’re ready to find your holiday dream house here in Los Alamos, give me a call! I love it when fall shifts to winter, the mornings are brisk and cold, and the nights are perfect for hanging out in front of the fire or the woodstove. So while your chestnuts are roasting, give me a shout! I’d love to talk real estate in Los Alamos with you!