Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos, New Mexico
Rich in history, authentic in architecture, The Mabel Dodge Luhan House has been a center of Taos arts and education for nearly 100 years.
As you approach the house of Mabel Dodge Luhan, it’s easy to see why some of the greatest minds of the 20th century were inspired here. Situated at the end of a quiet road not far from the center of town, the house appears much as it did in the days when Mabel admired her views of the sacred Taos Mountain from the third-story solarium.
One can only imagine the tantalizing conversations that must have taken place within these walls. Georgia O’Keeffe stayed here. So did D.H. Lawrence, Ansel Adams and Martha Graham, among many other notables.
The property on which the Mabel Dodge Luhan House sits contained a four-room adobe in 1918 when it was purchased for $1,500. Antonio Lujan supervised a crew from the Taos Pueblo who renovated and expanded the structure to roughly its present state. Thus began a famous era in the history of the American counterculture which continues to this day.
Los Gallos, as the house was named, represents a conjunction between an elite and progressive world community of well known artists and thinkers and one of the most enduring native societies in the western hemisphere – Taos Pueblo.
Before arriving in Taos, Mabel Dodge had been a prominent figure in the arts and society of New York City and Europe. Born to a wealthy family in Buffalo, New York, she entertained and supported many of the well-known artists, activists, writers and thinkers of her time. Her Salons were informal gatherings where people joined to dine and to discuss the new ideas of the century, often forming relationships and fomenting ideas which would have far-reaching influences. Guests of Mabel’s included Emma Goldman, Alfred Stieglitz, Margaret Sanger, John Reed and others of the political and artistic avant-garde.
When Mabel left New York to settle in Taos, marrying a full-blooded Taos Pueblo man by the name of Tony Lujan, it seemed as though the whole world was watching. During the 1930s New Yorker Magazine cartoons quipped about Mabel in Taos, while set designs for Shakespeare productions on Broadway were based on adobe architecture. Georgia O’Keeffe, Willa Cather, Ansel Adams and others found inspiration that would shape their lives’ work while visiting Tony and Mabel’s home. Carl Jung’s visits to the Taos Pueblo would influence mainstream conceptions of the “native mind,” while political wheels, set in motion by certain of Mabel’s friends like John Collier, would affect legislation to benefit Native American communities for generations to come. All of these events and many more can be traced at some point to Mabel and Tony’s commitment to one another and to the life they built in Taos.
Author Lois Rudnick in Utopian Vistas recognizes that “many who came to the Luhan House were at a critical point in their lives, physically, psychologically, or vocationally. For them, the house functioned as a kind of life crisis center breaking down and healing, making – and sometimes unmaking – love affairs and marriages. Because several visitors often stayed with the Luhans simultaneously, the opportunities for mentoring, cross fertilization, and feuding were enormously rich….”
Mabel Dodge Luhan House, Taos, New Mexico
Rich in history, authentic in architecture, The Mabel Dodge Luhan House has been a center of Taos arts and education for nearly 100 years.
As you approach the house of Mabel Dodge Luhan, it’s easy to see why some of the greatest minds of the 20th century were inspired here. Situated at the end of a quiet road not far from the center of town, the house appears much as it did in the days when Mabel admired her views of the sacred Taos Mountain from the third-story solarium.
One can only imagine the tantalizing conversations that must have taken place within these walls. Georgia O’Keeffe stayed here. So did D.H. Lawrence, Ansel Adams and Martha Graham, among many other notables.
The property on which the Mabel Dodge Luhan House sits contained a four-room adobe in 1918 when it was purchased for $1,500. Antonio Lujan supervised a crew from the Taos Pueblo who renovated and expanded the structure to roughly its present state. Thus began a famous era in the history of the American counterculture which continues to this day.
Los Gallos, as the house was named, represents a conjunction between an elite and progressive world community of well known artists and thinkers and one of the most enduring native societies in the western hemisphere – Taos Pueblo.
Before arriving in Taos, Mabel Dodge had been a prominent figure in the arts and society of New York City and Europe. Born to a wealthy family in Buffalo, New York, she entertained and supported many of the well-known artists, activists, writers and thinkers of her time. Her Salons were informal gatherings where people joined to dine and to discuss the new ideas of the century, often forming relationships and fomenting ideas which would have far-reaching influences. Guests of Mabel’s included Emma Goldman, Alfred Stieglitz, Margaret Sanger, John Reed and others of the political and artistic avant-garde.
When Mabel left New York to settle in Taos, marrying a full-blooded Taos Pueblo man by the name of Tony Lujan, it seemed as though the whole world was watching. During the 1930s New Yorker Magazine cartoons quipped about Mabel in Taos, while set designs for Shakespeare productions on Broadway were based on adobe architecture. Georgia O’Keeffe, Willa Cather, Ansel Adams and others found inspiration that would shape their lives’ work while visiting Tony and Mabel’s home. Carl Jung’s visits to the Taos Pueblo would influence mainstream conceptions of the “native mind,” while political wheels, set in motion by certain of Mabel’s friends like John Collier, would affect legislation to benefit Native American communities for generations to come. All of these events and many more can be traced at some point to Mabel and Tony’s commitment to one another and to the life they built in Taos.
Author Lois Rudnick in Utopian Vistas recognizes that “many who came to the Luhan House were at a critical point in their lives, physically, psychologically, or vocationally. For them, the house functioned as a kind of life crisis center breaking down and healing, making – and sometimes unmaking – love affairs and marriages. Because several visitors often stayed with the Luhans simultaneously, the opportunities for mentoring, cross fertilization, and feuding were enormously rich….”