This old house
Restored Casa Vieja gets a new lease on life
CORRALES — This Old House has seen a lot of years, and this Old House has seen a lot of lives.
This Old House has seen some good times, and this Old House has seen some bad times.
This Old House is Casa Vieja, which means — you guessed it — old house.
Built as a home, Casa Vieja, 4541 Corrales Road, dates back at least to the mid-1800s and might be older than that. In addition to its role as a residence, it has played the parts of a grocery store, a courthouse, a small hospital and perhaps even soldiers’ quarters. From 1970 to 2011, it housed restaurants that boasted the talents of chefs such as Jim White and Josh Gerwin.
The worst of times for the Old House were the summer of 2011 when the building was closed because a structural wall was discovered to be on the verge of collapse due to severe water damage. Poor drainage and a faulty septic system were the suspected culprits. The crumbling wall was in an area used for washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen.
For five years, Casa Vieja, which had in many ways been a vital organ in the life of this village, stood abandoned and desolate.
Then, in 2016, Linda and Gary Socha and their daughter Maria Socha leased Casa Vieja and set about giving it new life as an event center. The rejuvenated Casa Vieja opened for business in June 2016, and the Sochas recently purchased the property.
Now may be the best of times for the Old House. Restored as much as is feasible to, as Linda Socha put it, “the most authentic version of itself,” Casa Vieja vibrates with an old-world charm that has likely not been apparent since the 1940s.
And earlier this month, the Corrales Historical Society and Corrales Main Street presented the Sochas with an Honor Award in recognition of their renovation of a local landmark.
“I think they did an incredibly good job, the best job anyone could have done,” said Mary Davis, chair of the historical society’s archive committee. “They have been so interested in the history and have paid good attention. They have returned it to a homey space, a really welcoming place.”
Team effort
It would be difficult to imagine a team better suited to putting the polish on a clouding jewel than the Sochas. Gary is a mechanical engineer, Linda worked as an interior decorator for 30 years and Maria is a wedding planner. They have it covered from foundation to furnishings to festivities.
After developing a vision for the building, the Sochas hired an architect and a construction company. It took six months of work to get Casa Vieja, which encompasses 5,000 square feet and includes seven rooms for guest activities, in shape for its latest incarnation. One of the first things accomplished was the dismantling of the building’s commercial kitchen. Casa Vieja is no longer a restaurant. Meals served at events there are catered, and the former kitchen area can now be used as a dining room.
“A larger (ventilator) hood mounted in the ceiling of what had been the kitchen had been improperly installed,” Maria said. “A couple of vigas cracked and we had to replace the roof.”
While working in the kitchen vicinity, a portrait was discovered inside a wall. As best the Sochas have been able to determine, it depicts a French duke of the 1600s and the painting itself appears to have been done in Spain in the 1700s. The duke, a relieved expression on his face, now hangs on the proper side of a wall in Casa Vieja.
Another major challenge facing the Sochas was the property’s septic system, which was made up of multiple septic tanks. The Sochas dealt with that immediately.
“The first thing we did was connect to the village sewer line,” Linda said.
Drainage was also troublesome.
“That’s because the ground on the north side of the building was higher than the foundation,” Maria said.
Some landscaping work was needed to deal with that liability.
“And we put in special roof drains and a rain-capturing system we use for irrigating,” Linda said.
A lot of effort went into repainting the interior. Blues, varying shades of white and subtle earth tones replaced the more vivid colors of Casa Vieja’s restaurant years.
“We got rid of the mustard yellow and ketchup red schemes,” Linda said. “We removed dropped ceilings of acoustic tile. A lot of what we based our restoration on was pictures from when it was a home. A big thing was restoring doors which date back before the 1940s.”
Flagstones and phantoms
Earlier renovation efforts had been implemented by the Harrington family, which moved from Sioux City, Iowa, to Corrales in the early 1940s, purchased the Old House and owned it until 1950. The Harringtons, like the Sochas, were concerned with restoring and preserving the building’s heritage. They were responsible for carved rope trim around doors, chip carvings on book cases, flagstone and brick floors and kiva fireplaces and nichos.
Some of the Harrington’s work — the rope trim and chip carvings, for example — survived the six decades that have elapsed since they lived in the house. The Sochas refurbished efforts that had been eclipsed by the passing years.
“We repaired and restored seven fireplaces on the property,” Linda said.
The Old House is growing into its new purpose. The Sochas said Casa Vieja is averaging six events a month, including birthday parties, anniversaries, celebrations of life, weddings, corporate events, art exhibits and holiday parties. On a full-moon night earlier this month, Casa Vieja hosted a Corrales ghost tour that started with dinner at the Old House and continued with a tractor-drawn wagon ride to supposedly haunted village venues.
Not that you actually have to leave Casa Vieja to find ghosts. The Sochas said some guests have reported seeing the apparition of an elderly woman who seems to prefer materializing in the building’s Blue Room.
“Our ghosts are friendly,” Maria said. “All impressions have been positive.”
You could say the same thing about the latest chapter in the story of this Old House.