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It’s early, just past 5 am, when the visitor hears it -- a long, low moan
rising to a howl. The call of a coyote. The call of the wild, really, just a
few miles from the heart of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The visitor steps to the patio just outside his bedroom and listens. Soon
a chorus arises, howls from every hillside.
Dawn has yet to fight its way over the horizon, and the stars burn bright,
shining through the dark crust of the sky. The big dipper seems close
enough to grab, and the milky way covers the heavens like a celestial
snowstorm that has just blown in from another universe.
It is a good time and place to be alone, thinks the visitor, as he settles
into a chair and feels the soft morning breeze as it sweeps from the mountains
and ruffles the curtains on the bedroom window. There aren’t many
places left in Santa Fe, he thinks, that offer such an escape -- from people,
traffic, neon, and noise.
But here, nestled in a snug 336 acres of complete privacy, there is refuge and peace and an
overpowering sense of serenity. The place is called Hacienda del Cerezo, and it is -- for this
visitor, at least -- perfect.
Perfection, alas, comes at a price. A night for two costs $600. A high price, to be sure, but
when you include sumptious accommodations (all 10 guestrooms are different), all meals (extraordinary
even by Santa Fe standards) and wines, horseback riding (on some of the finest
saddle horses you’ll find anywhere), tennis, and the run of this magnificent property, you can
quite easily justify the expenditure -- especially for a very special occasion.
The adobe inn sits on a rise in the midst of pinon pine and junipers. The views sweep from
the back terrace across the tawny soil of the high dessert to the tumbled peaks of the Sangre
de Cristo mountains in the distance.
A magnificent great room spills across much of the house and is where most of the meals are
enjoyed. It looks over the terrace, gardens, pool, and the land beyond. A small library provides
an intimate space for reading or playing chess. Each guestroom is individually decorated and
themed (the Oso Room, for example, features an etched glass bear on the shower door, books
about bears by the bedside, and bear profiles chiseled into the beams; oso is Spanish for bear).
All rooms are stuffed with amenities, from fine toiletries to soft robes.
Such details make Hacienda del Cerezo one of the most unusual and gratifying experiences in
Santa Fe.
And the coyotes? Well, they’re just a bonus.
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