STAYING IN A LIVING MUSEUM

Step into the Lobby and public spaces of La Fonda on the Plaza and your senses soar. Art is quite literally everywhere. Overhead are beautifully carved and painted beams, sculpted corbels and handcrafted chandeliers of tin and glass and copper. Our signature dining room, La Plazuela, was recently renovated and is filled with handmade furniture and a multitude of artistic details, most created by local craftsmen. Indeed, La Fonda has celebrated New Mexico art and artisans for more than eighty years.
 
When La Fonda became a Harvey House in the 1920's, architect/designer Mary Jane Colter was hired to create the hotel interiors. She filled La Fonda with beautiful Spanish Colonial furnishings, rugs and her signature wrought iron designs. In the 1920's and 1930’s, noted local artists were commissioned to create works of art for La Fonda’s public spaces and meeting rooms.
 
Gerald Cassidy (1879-1934) painted ten dramatic canvases depicting Native Americans, Spanish dancers and Kit Carson as well as a gorgeous map of New Mexico and Arizona that hangs in the New Mexico Room. Paul Lantz (1908-2000) painted handsome murals depicting life in a typical Mexican village. He also created two large tableaus for the hotel’s ballroom and a large painting that graces the stairway leading to it.
 
Vladan Stiha’s striking painted panels of Native Americans grace the hotel’s Mezzanine overlooking the La Plazuela dining room. And throughout the hotel our Resident Artist, Ernest Martinez, has painted whimsical Native American motifs and flora and fauna along corridor walls, on guest room furniture and even in the hotel’s parking garage creating artistic surprises around every corner.