House of the Week: An 1880s Adobe Home Near Santa Fe

This 2.7-acre estate in a sleepy village outside Santa Fe beautifully captures the architectural flavor of its time. Built in 1881, the year after the railroad arrived and gave Lamy, NM a reason to exist, it still boasts adobe walls and rough-hewn ceiling beams known in these parts as “vigas.”

The 3-bedroom, 3-bath main home was for a few decades the Lamy General Store and Post Office, before an oil tycoon bought it in the 1970s, according to current owner Jean Zunkel. The tycoon’s son-in-law turned it from a store back into a home.

Zunkel loves the energy of the home, which shares the estate with a 1-bedroom guesthouse, a pitched-roof structure housing a studio and 3-car garage, and an orchard with cherry, peach, apricot and apple trees. Together, they’re on the market for $1.5 million.

“You can tell it carries a lot of history, although it doesn’t have any ghosts,” Zunkel said. “People walk into my house and instantly feel comfortable and relaxed.”

An open floor plan in the main home’s living area boasts ceilings higher than most traditional adobe homes, along with brick and tile floors, a fireplace and French doors. There’s a bay window in the dining room and a bump-out window in one of the master bedrooms, both with cushions for reading or nature gazing.

All three bedrooms have attached bathrooms, and one includes a fireplace, French doors and enough square footage to be a bedroom and an office.

The listing agent is Stephanie Duran of Barker Realty/Christie’s International Real Estate.

Photos by Jonathan Tercero.

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from Zillow Porchlight http://www.zillow.com/blog/1880s-adobe-near-santa-fe-198136/
via Reveeo

UPDATE: Did Jennifer Lopez Buy Sela Ward's Bel Air Estate?

UPDATE: Jennifer Lopez, who’s been on a home-buying spree the past few years, has reportedly snagged Sela Ward’s Bel Air estate, which has been on the market since last fall for a whopping $39.995 million. The “Jenny from the Block” discount brought it to $28 million, TMZ first reported, and the Los Angeles Times confirmed.

J-Lo is still trying to sell her listing on another block, in Kardashian-rich Hidden Hills. She’s also flush with real estate, if reports are true of her dropping $10 million for an acreage in the Hamptons in 2013 and $22.25 million for a Manhattan penthouse a year later.

ORIGINAL POST 9/15/15: Just two years out of “CSI: NY,” Sela Ward has a hankering to live in the Big Apple - and that means putting her 14,000-square-foot gated estate in Bel Air on the market.

Ward, who recently landed the role of President of the United States in next year’s “Independence Day: Resurgence,” bought the sprawling mansion on eight acres in 2003 with her husband, Howard Sherman, so their children could spend more time in nature, she told The Wall Street Journal.

The couple revamped the 7-bedroom, 13-bath estate and intended to flip it, until Ward “greeted me at the door one day and said, ‘Let’s live here!'” Sherman told Traditional Home.

Gracious Southern and French living mix in the five-bedroom main home, where century-old heart pine floors complement reclaimed wood beams from Louisiana and Ward’s native Mississippi, plus antique doors and limestone counters from France.

The home includes a 30-seat theater, a library enveloped in cypress wood, and a small greenhouse off the indoor kitchen that Ward calls “l’orangerie.”

A wall of doors in the living room opens onto a terrace that overlooks a stream lined with rose bushes and Mexican lime trees.

The property encompasses an art studio and guesthouse as well as a vineyard, a covered footbridge and a 100-seat amphitheater.

Residents and guests have two choices for swimming: an infinity pool and a man-made pond with a sandy beach lit by tiki torches.

Listing agents are Branden Williams and Rayni Romito of Williams & Williams at Hilton & Hyland, an affiliate of Christie's International Real Estate, and Jade Mills of Coldwell Banker Previews International.

Photos courtesy of Hilton & Hyland.

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from Zillow Porchlight http://www.zillow.com/blog/j-lo-sela-ward-bel-air-estate-183541/
via Reveeo

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