Episode 47– You can also listen on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google podcasts, and Amazon Music
About the Episode:
Want to learn more about one of the most beautiful place in Northern New Mexico? Would you like even better to stay there in your own semi-private retreat space? Find out why we love The Grand Hacienda Inn at Abiquiu Lake on this episode with Tom and Carolyn Calfee. They are lucky enough to live in paradise and nice enough to want to share it with all of us!
Links:
Grand Hacienda Website
Hacienda Blog
I Love New Mexico blog page
Bunny’s website
I Love New Mexico Instagram
I Love New Mexico Facebook
Original Music by: Kene Terry
Featuring:
Tom and Carolyn Calfee
Tom and Carolyn Calfee are owners of The Grand Hacienda B&B Inn on Abiquiu Lake, just outside the village of Abiquiu in northern New Mexico. They like to say this magical land found them, rather than the other way around. With backgrounds in the financial industry, they pivoted their life journey, moved to Abiquiu and built The Grand Hacienda. Four years later, The Grand Hacienda continues living out their vision – it is a place of health and wellness, an ecotourism destination, and a luxurious stay. Living in New Mexico suits Carolyn and Tom as they are adventurers who love to hike, ski and enjoy time in and on the water. Self-proclaimed foodies, they are gourmet chefs in their own right. When not running the Inn, they are often traveling and exploring new destinations and cultures or visiting their adult children.
Episode Transcript
Bunny : (00:00)
Hi there. I’m Bunny Terry, and you’re listening to the I Love New Mexico podcast. Whether you’re a native new Mexican, who’s lived here for your entire life, or you’re just considering a visit, this episode is for you. Join us as we share a lot of New Mexico’s stories, talk about all things New Mexico, and include topics like what’s magical here, where you ought to visit, what’s happening, and the things you absolutely cannot miss in the land of Enchantment. We’re excited that you’re here, and we can’t wait to show you what an amazing place New Mexico is, because let’s face it, I love New Mexico. As most of you know, from, um, prior, um, podcast episodes. I’m, I really like to focus on small businesses in New Mexico whenever the opportunity presents itself. And today I’m getting to speak with Carolyn and Tom Calfee. They own a place in, I believe in, in my opinion, um, the most beautiful corner of New Mexico. Although if you ask me next week, I’ll probably have a different answer. But, um, Abba Q is by far, um, one of the most scenic places I believe in the world, and Carolyn and Tom get to live there and to run a small business there that is called the Grand Hacienda. And rather than me talking and, um, talking about something that I know less about than they do, I would love for, Carolyn and Tom for you to tell us who you are, um, how you got to Que and what the Grand Hacienda is, why, why should our folks be interested in it?
Carolyn : (01:56)
Wonderful. Well, thank you for having us. Um, so I’m Carolyn and Tom and I created and built the Grand Hacienda in about four years ago. We’re in our fourth season, and the Grand Hacienda is a very special, almost magical place. It’s a three suite end, so we’re very small, um, and we focus on relaxation, kind of getting off the main path and getting out into nature. And we also provide a three course gourmet breakfast every morning and afternoon treat. So when you stay here at the Grand Hacienda, you’re getting a full getaway experience out on Abiquiu Lake. So it’s a location that not many people can get to, um, directly across the lake from Ghost Ranch. And it’s an experience that we don’t think can be replicated anywhere else in the Abiquiu area. Um, another, another great thing about our hacienda here is that since we built it, it took us three years to build. Um, we were able to make it incredibly green. Our footprint is very green kind of ecotourism experience, and Tom is the expert on that. So I’ll let him jump into that for a little bit.
Tom : (03:25)
Hi everybody. As far as the, the Grand Hacienda goes, um, it’s solar it, we are on grid, but we produce most of our, uh, energy that we consume here. And then we also, uh, conserve water. Um, we are, uh, in the midst of a very long-term drought here in the Southwest. And so water saving measures were kind of critical to what, to what we do. And there’s really just not much water that we don’t, uh, reuse, whether it’s watering our trees or catching the rainwater to water our vegetables. And so, um, we’re, we’re very efficient that way. We do grow a lot of our food, uh, that we use on site. And, uh, and that makes, makes it, uh, very healthy, very nutritious, and, uh, and also very, uh, very earth-friendly. And then we, uh, we, we have a greenhouse during, uh, uh, off growing seasons. We use the heat and that that’s created in our greenhouse that heats the floors throughout the Grand Hacienda. And then in addition, we have other, uh, that very, you know, very heavy insulation. We have our floors that are Earth for those that are, uh, in the grounding and to, uh, earthing measures. And then, uh, low emf, uh, just the, just the healthiest environment that we could, that, you know, that we knew of today, uh, to build our grand hacienda. And, and so when we come here, we want it to be an exciting sighting experience for you. Uh, one that offers so, so much to do friendly to pets. And at the same time, uh, at the same time, uh, you, your existence here, uh, we hope that you will, uh, leave feeling better from being here than when you first came.
Carolyn : (05:07)
Yeah. And just to add onto that, in this, in terms of the experience, one of the things everybody talks about when they leave are the breakfasts. So as Tom mentioned, we have our own greenhouse. We grow a lot of, um, our own vegetables, all of our herbs, and all of that goes into, um, what our guests get to eat every morning. And if we don’t grow it, we buy it locally. We hit farmer’s markets, um, and no preservatives, no processed foods. Um, we love gastronomy. We are creative chefs, and so everything that you’re gonna be served is gonna be creative. If you’re a foodie, you are going to love staying at the Grand Hacienda. Um, in addition to that, I wanted to touch on some of the suites that we have and then the common areas. So we have three suites. They all have fabulous views. They all have king-sized beds and spa bathrooms. Um, they all have their own private entrance and private outdoor terrace. Um, every terrace has lounge chairs and chi chia, fire pots. Um, so you’re really sitting on the edge of this mesa overlooking the desert, overlooking the lake, um, just having your own kind of private getaway. Um, and in terms of amenities to make your stay perfect, we have a shared kitchen, um, a hot tub, a rooftop deck, kind of a foot pool, um, and then a great room where you can eat, you can dine, um, there’s a library in there, a small gift shop, and a chimney, fire pot. So when you come to the Grand Hacienda, you have full amenities and, um, you just have a luxurious place to stay. So we, we know that there are a lot of places to stay in Abiquiu, but there’s no place quite like this.
Bunny : (07:01)
Well, so I’m, so there are a couple of things going on in my head. First, it’s that I need to book a weekend. It does look like you’re quite busy this summer, which is good for you. But the other part is that I know, um, that there are a few other people like me out there in the world who are thinking, well, you guys are doing what I wanna do. I mean, you’re, I don’t, I don’t know what you did in the, in your life before the Grand Hacienda, but I have always thought, um, wouldn’t it be fun to, um, have some sort of a hospitality gig that belonged to me where I got to grow my own food and have a greenhouse? Holy mackerel, you guys are, you’re doing, um, what I think people dream of doing. So I’m really interested in talking about that. But before we talk about how this came to be your life, I’d like for you to let people know, I always, I never wanna assume that our listeners have been to Abiquiu before. So I’d like for you to place it geographically and tell people a little bit about what Abiquiu is. And, and I also, you know, I just did a, we just had as a guest a few weeks ago, um, the folks who own the Abiquiu Dome and that adorable little gallery there. But I’m, let’s just assume that we’ve got a listener in, you know, in England who has never been to Abiquiu. What would you want folks to know about that part of the world?
Tom : (08:35)
Yeah, I can take it from here and then, uh, Carolyn can talk a little bit about the, the things to do around here, uh, which in the middle of nowhere you would be surprised. The list gets pretty long. But Abiquiu itself is in North Central, uh, New Mexico, and we’re not, uh, you know, we’re about an hour and a half from the Colorado border. We’re, as you triangulate us, uh, we’re about an hour and a half from, from Taos and an hour and a half from Santa Fe, just a little bit closer to Santa Fe. But you know, that kind of puts you where we are. And we’re, we’re on, on a lake back in the early sixties, the Army Corps, um, uh, dugout an area here and dammed up an area for a lake. So we we’re on Abiquiu Lake, that’s where the Grand Hacienda sits, is on Abiquiu Lake. It’s about a nine mile long lake, a couple hundred thousand acre-feet. Um, and it, uh, it, it’s water from, uh, the San Juan Mountains that comes here. And what is very unique about, about this area here is we’re surrounded 360 degrees by mountains. And it actually, it, it was surprising when we first light laid our eyes on this site back in 2005, that you could actually purchase land here, um, surrounded 360 degrees by mountains, uh, surrounded 360 degrees by National forest. We were carved out as part of a, a land grant, uh, to, uh, some of the early settlers here that then began to, to, to sell their land off, uh, in the last, uh, last couple decades. And we were fortunate enough to be able to, to purchase some of that, and gave us the land here to build the Grand Hacienda and on. And so it, it’s very unique for Northern New Mexico, in fact that it’s on a lake, but it has Sedona like mountains. And that was one of our major attractions to it here. It’s just these beautiful Red Rock and multicolored, uh, layers of rock over 200 million year old that make up the Colorado Plateau. Uh, that is, that is, uh, uh, the gist of the landscape around here. And as you, as you related earlier, it’s just one of the most beautiful places that we ever set our eyes on, not just in New Mexico, and not just in the United States, but in the entire world. Caroline, I’ll let you take it from here.
Carolyn : (10:53)
Yeah. So Tom’s kind of given you a visual of it, but you know, before we were here and before it, um, became land grand by the Spanish crown, the Tewa Native Americans lived right here where we built the Hacienda. And after they left, um, the Navajo came through and actually settled here. So this is very special, um, spiritual land. And no one has lived here since the Navajo were here until those of us who built out here, um, built our properties because as a land grant, it was just grazing land. So the land is really undisturbed, and as you hike around, you can find arrowheads and scrapers and just evidence of their life here. So we always said that we wanted to build this hacienda with the land and not on the land, because taking care and preserving this land is, you know, of utmost importance to us, um, and to many of our guests. But once you get here, you may never wanna leave the Grand Hacienda. That’s what all of our guests say. They come with long lists of things that they wanna do, and then they end up saying, we just wanna sit right here. So that is certainly an option too. But if you are adventurous, um, there’s so much to do here from, um, in terms of outdoor activities, there’s hiking, there’s the lake, so you can go kayaking. Um, there’s biking, there’s incredible hiking tours. Um, but then there’s also this cultural element where you can go and look at Cliff dwellings and Bandelier National Monument is nearby. Um, there’s Pueblos nearby that you can visit and kind of get a sense of, um, that whole culture, which is very different. Um, but the biggest thing about Abiquiu that everybody puts us on the map for is Artis. George O’Keefe lived here and her home and studio, um, our in the village.
Carolyn : (12:46)
And you can take tours through her home and studio. You can go to Ghost Ranch and take tours of the places that she’s painted. And what she, you know, she brought this incredible, um, exposure to Abiquiu because so many of her paintings of trees and flowers and bones and mountains and, um, her mountain patal, she made famous in her paintings. But since then, we’ve kind of become an artist colony where we have so many artists. You mentioned, um, the Abiquiu Dome, they feature a lot of those artists there as well. But individual artists have galleries and studios all throughout the Abiquiu regions. So, you know, from an art perspective or cultural perspective or outdoor adventure perspective, um, you know, Abiquiu kind of has it all. We can have guests come here and we can keep ’em busy every day for a month doing something different. Um, not everybody has that luxury of time, but, um, you won’t wanna leave once you get here, that’s for sure.
Bunny : (13:47)
Well, and I think the other thing that, um, my friend Carol Ho is, um, the chief of operations, I believe that’s her title up at Ghost Ranch. And I want people to know that Ghost Ranch offers a lot of, um, workshops. And you don’t have to stay in residence, right? I mean, correct.
Carolyn : (14:06)
Correct. Yeah. A lot of our tests take, um, workshops and classes at Ghost Ranch, um, and stay with us.
Bunny : (14:15)
So when we, um, while we’re publicizing this, we wanna, we really wanna show folks some, um, visuals of the Abiquiu area, but I also just want to, because New Mexico seems to be a place where people show up and, or, or, or where they, you know, their family’s been here for thousands of years, um, and where they start fulfilling their dreams. I’m curious about the two of you. How did you come to this?
Tom : (14:44)
Yeah, um, this is I’ll start off with this anyway, is that, um, this was back in, in 2005 and we were taking a trip to Santa Fe with Carolyn’s parents who, who we just got back from seeing by the way, in, uh, in the Denver area. And we were in Santa Fe. And, um, I love her parents dearly and really enjoy the time I get to spend with them. And we were on about the third day of all staying together in Santa Fe. And after, after the third day as been, honey, I’m just gonna take a little drive and just explore the area around here. Cuz we hadn’t seen much outside of Santa Fe, and that was 2005, and it’s kind of hard for us to put ourselves back in that, uh, 18, 18 year ago, uh, period. But, uh, iPhones were, were not part of our existence. Uh, GPS was, was very primitive and used mainly for, for hiking. And so maps and were principally are still of our way of, of, of, uh, getting around. And so I just started coming up 84 up, up from Santa Fe, and then you start seeing these red rocks start to appear just like kind of you do when you start approaching a Sedona. And, and as I got closer, there just became more and more and more of ’em. It says, this is really kind of a beautiful place. And then you see a sign that says the one mile, and you can’t believe that there’s actually a dam in New Mexico, but if there is, certainly there’s no water in behind that dam. And then you turn the corner on 96 and it’s like, oh my gosh, here’s one of the most beautiful lakes I’ve ever seen. Right? And along with, you know, the backdrop of, of the Red Rocks, like this is one of the most prettiest places I’ve ever seen. And so the very next day I brought the whole family up, we all looked at, at some available lots for sale. The very next day after that, we bought our first lot was just the first and many that we purchased, uh, up in this area just because, and it kind of comes down to what Georgia O’Keefe said is, I’m not so sure that I found or we found this land up here as much as it may have found us. And, and when it did, it was undeniable that this had to be a part of our life.
Carolyn : (16:54)
And, you know, at that time we both were working in the financial industry. So we were in Chicago and traveling to New York and then, you know, Dallas. And so we were deep in the financial industry raising three kids. And so for the next 10 years, 15 years, we just came out here when we could, when we could break away and we needed to escape. And then when I retired, which was about six, seven years ago, we decided to move out here full time. And we were just sitting around and talking with our friends and, you know, what should we do? And we were like, we’re gonna open a bed and breakfast. You know, we had been in the involved in the rental hospitality business before, so it wasn’t foreign to us. Um, and then just kind of that dream started and the Grand Hacienda was born four years after that. So it is a very traditional hacienda, um, which is why it took us four years sourced with natural materials. Um, Tom still works in the financial industry and, um, I run the in full-time and we have a great team out here. And that’s kind of how it happened just by fluke. It just, the land found us and pulled us here.
Bunny : (18:11)
That is a wonderful story.
Tom : (18:14)
Yeah. And so one of the things we wanted to work off of and and differentiate ourselves is we had, we had done the houses, we had rented the houses. It was really successful for us. We really liked doing it. But as we were getting older, um, it, we, we just thought about a, a change of altering an ultra high end luxury option for the people that wanted to come to, to Northern New Mexico. And we, that option did not exist here. It doesn’t exist very often in all of New Mexico, but we wanted to, you know, there, there are other places to stay around here, but we wanted to give people that, that who wanted the option of that high end luxury experience. And so with that, uh, we created and, and crafted the Grand Hacienda into the, the type of, uh, ultra high-end, uh, event that we were attracted to and that we thought others would be attracted to also.
Bunny : (19:10)
So you have three rooms. Um, do you generally, I mean, do you a lot of times have groups that come together? Is that something that happens because I’m thinking about it, you know, like I could bring my kids my, you know, I, it’s interesting.
Carolyn : (19:27)
Yeah. You know, that’s a great question. And what usually happens is we’ll have, you know, guests, you know, a couple or you know, two people will come and stay and they will be blown away. We’ve had people walk onto our lakeside terrace and just burst into tears. They can’t believe the stillness, the quiet and the beauty. And then all of them figure out who they wanna come with so they can have the whole run of the place, right? Right. And so usually, um, probably about 30% of our guests end up coming back with two other groups and they take up the whole place and they love that. Um, you know, it’s a great experience when you’re here with just two other groups and it’s a amazing experience when it’s your family or your close friends and, you know, you just get total run of it. You have the hot tub when you want it, the kitchen, when you want it, the great room when you want it. And, um, you know, we love that too. So we’ve met a lot of people’s families, um, over the years and it’s just been wonderful, wonderful for them and certainly wonderful for us too to meet them. We
Bunny : (20:38)
Have links to the Grand Hacienda, um, uh, with this podcast so that folks can find you. Um, is there anything that we haven’t covered? Because I wanna be sure that people find you and that they experience, um, what you’re offering. And I’m, I’m, I wanna be one of those people. So have we missed anything?
Carolyn : (21:00)
Well, I think if you’re gonna post, um, links, that’s great. It’s the grand hacienda.com. And the other thing I would say is if you rent all three rooms, you are welcome to bring, um, guests under the age of 16. But if you’re, if we’re not renting the whole property, then we’re an adult only property. We allow dogs in one of our suites. Um, and the other two we reserve for people who, uh, maybe have allergies. Um, so those rooms are no pets allowed in two, but they’re certainly allowed in one. And we hope everybody finds us. You know, we are kind of a word of mouth property and people tell their friends and we are blessed, um, that people have found us. And we hope all of you listening today, come and try us also.
Bunny : (21:52)
Well, I’m so glad that you found us, because this gives us a great way to tell people where to find, um, one of the most beautiful places in New Mexico, in in the world as, as Tom says. So, um, there are gonna be links posted and, um, Carolyn and Tom, I’m looking forward to meeting you in person.
Carolyn : (22:11)
Well, thank you so much and we look forward to meeting you as well. And thanks for, uh, featuring us on this podcast. Yes,
Bunny : (22:19)
Thank you very much. Nice meeting you. It’s a gift to have you.
Carolyn : (22:23)
All right, take care.