Colter and Meem’s Collaboration

In 1926, the hospitality company Fred Harvey hired local architecture firm Meem & McCormick to renovate and expand the La Fonda hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The lead partner was John Gaw Meem, a former civil engineer who had co-founded the architecture firm four years earlier. It was the firm’s largest project to date.

At thirty-two, Meem seemed to know when to take good advice. This was fortunate because Mary E. J. Colter had much to offer. Then in her late fifties, Colter had nearly a quarter century of experience working for Fred Harvey as an artist, architect, and decorator. On the La Fonda project, Colter served not only as decorator but also as a key advisor throughout its design and construction.

Post card of La Fonda’s South Portal Lounge. Courtesy of the Newberry Library.

Meem’s minutes from early project meeting included phrases like, “Miss Colter suggests…,” “Miss Colter feels that…,”and “Miss Colter strongly objects to….” Meem often came to see things Colter’s way, moving a staircase and making other changes to the building’s design. Once Meem wrote to a Fred Harvey executive that Colter had suggested developing the interior “more with a tendency to Colonial Spanish” than to a “straight Santa Fe style” that she thought would be less hospitable. “Since talking with Miss Colter, I am inclined to agree with her,” Meem wrote.

Meem and Colter did not always agree, though; they parted ways over decisions that could increase costs. For example, when Colter expressed concern that his proposed floor finish would be more expensive than an alternative, Meem insisted that “there is no other way of treating these floors that would be as satisfactory.”

Colter provided compliments as well as critiques. Meem responded to one letter from Colter by writing, “I am so glad you like the fireplace we designed….Your approval is encouraging.” Another time he wrote, “Please let me thank you for the very friendly and complimentary remarks contained in your letter which I appreciate very much.”

In March 1929, when Colter was in a taxi accident and suffered back and hip injuries that would confine her to bed for weeks, Meem wrote to wish her well. “It must be particularly tantalizing to you to be laid up just at this time when you are needed so badly on so many projects, among which is our La Fonda,” Meem wrote.

In early April 1929, Meem wrote a lengthy letter to Colter. He opened with, “This letter will be in no sense a business letter. It is simply intended to help make the time go a little faster while you are in the hospital.”  He followed with updates on the progress on the New Mexican Room, the Lecture Room, and other project news. Later that month, Colter’s secretary wrote to Meem that Colter expected to get to Santa Fe “before the grand opening and ‘hopes to regain her strength sparring with you.’”

La Fonda hotel from the southwest, 2013 (Atakra, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons)

If Colter’s input contributed to Meem’s design, he might also have made a contribution to hers. After reviewing and identifying a collection of photographs of Ancestral Puebloan ruins at Colter’s request, he wrote that while doing so, “I saw many pictures of masonry, Kivas, etc. which I know will be of interest to you,” so he selected and ordered copies of them for her. It is possible that these photos influenced her design of the Desert View Watchtower.

Meem went on to many career successes. Among these, in 1933 he became the sole architect and planner for the University of New Mexico, a role he held for twenty-five years. Owing to his work on that campus and elsewhere, he has been credited with developing and popularizing the Pueblo Revival style.

Colter continued her design work for Fred Harvey until 1948 when she retired to Santa Fe. In 1949, then about eighty years old, she came out of retirement to help design one last project: the expansion La Fonda’s cocktail lounge. Visitors to the French Pastry Shop in La Fonda can see what that space looks like today.

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Sources:

Meem Job Files, MSS 790 BC, Box 3, Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico.

“Profile of an Architect: John Gaw Meem,” New Mexican Architect, October 1959.

“Taxi into Street Car,” Kansas City Star, March 14, 1929, 17.

Arnold Berke, Mary Colter: Architect of the Southwest. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002.