Six miles north of Santa Fe, Bishop’s Lodge Road moves through a landscape that the city does not prepare you for: the Tesuque Valley opens, the Rio Tesuque runs through cottonwood bosque, and the scale of the land reasserts itself after the density of the Plaza and the Canyon Road corridor. This is the territory of Tesuque, one of the most coveted addresses in northern New Mexico, and Las Urracas, sited on the river with equestrian facilities and old-growth cottonwoods along its bosque edge, is among the finest properties the valley has produced.
Architecture and Setting
Las Urracas was designed by John Midyette, the Santa Fe architect whose residential work defined a generation of distinguished homes in northern New Mexico. Midyette’s signature is the integration of building and landscape: his structures do not stand apart from their sites but grow from them, their massing and orientation responding to the specific conditions of land, light, and view that each location presents.
The main house and guest house are built in the adobe tradition that Midyette refined throughout his career. Thick walls, deep portals, interior spaces that modulate between the enclosed warmth of winter rooms and the open-air porches of the long New Mexico summer. Construction was carried out by Wolf Corporation, whose execution of Midyette’s design brought the project to completion at the level of quality the architect intended.
The property encompasses several acres along the Rio Tesuque. The river runs through the bosque, where old-growth cottonwood trees, some of significant age and girth, line the banks. In late October, the cottonwood canopy turns gold, and the bosque becomes one of the visual events of the northern New Mexico autumn. Year-round, the sound of the river and the shade of the trees give the property a quality of settledness that no amount of landscaping can approximate.
The equestrian facilities, including a barn and riding arena, extend the property’s functional range considerably. A property of this configuration, with architecturally significant construction, river frontage, old-growth bosque, and serious equestrian infrastructure, is unusual even within the Tesuque Valley, where the standard for distinguished property is already high.
Ownership History
Las Urracas’ first notable owners were the Leinberger family, who relocated to Tesuque from Southern California. Chris Leinberger was Managing Director of RCL Co, formally Robert Charles Lesser and Company, one of the country’s most respected real estate consultancy and development advisory practices. His work in real estate strategy at the national level brought to the Tesuque property a household with a particular fluency in what makes a place valuable over time. The Leinbergers chose the Tesuque Valley not for its convenience but for its irreplaceability.
The property subsequently passed to Sid and Mary Ann Jones, who brought their own chapter to an estate already fully formed by Midyette’s architecture and the Leinbergers’ stewardship.
The Tesuque Valley: What It Offers
Tesuque occupies a position in Santa Fe’s residential geography that is distinct from any other address in the region. It is close enough to the Plaza, roughly fifteen minutes by car, to make the city’s galleries, restaurants, and cultural life fully accessible. But its character is entirely different: agricultural, horse-oriented, river-shaped, with a density of mature vegetation that the city proper cannot provide.
The valley’s bosque, the cottonwood gallery forests that line the Rio Tesuque and its tributary streams, is one of the ecological anchors of the area. Properties with bosque frontage are prized for the shade, the sound, and the seasonal rhythms the trees provide.
Webster Estates has represented properties throughout the Tesuque Valley over many decades, and the team’s understanding of what distinguishes one parcel from another, whether in terms of water rights, agricultural easements, view corridors, or equestrian access, is grounded in direct experience rather than general knowledge.
A Note on the Rendering
The pen and ink rendering reproduced here is part of Webster Estates’ Artistic Renderings series. Las Urracas, with its river setting, cottonwood bosque, and Midyette-designed structures, offers the rendering artist material of considerable richness. The result captures both the architecture and the landscape in the relationship Midyette designed between them.
To inquire about Tesuque Valley properties or to discuss equestrian estates in northern New Mexico, please contact the Webster Estates team. Our full portfolio is at websterestates.com/properties.
The Webster Estates Team Chris Webster · Patti Webster · Christopher Webster III · Paisley Mason Webster
Webster Estates is the real estate brokerage arm of Webster Santa Fe, a team of Associate Brokers at Sotheby’s International Realty. The team has operated from 54½ Lincoln Avenue on The Plaza since 1976.
