Palace head: Fiesta crests should go
Museum director says tradition damaging building; Fiesta Council to fight request
The New Mexico History Museum wants to halt the Santa Fe Fiesta Council’s tradition of hanging plaques bearing Spanish coats of arms of local families’ ancestors across the front of the Palace of the Governors during the annual celebration centered on the community’s Hispanic heritage.
Hanging the painted wooden plaques on the adobe structure, built by colonists in the early 1600s as Spain’s seat of government for what is now the American Southwest, is damaging wood beams, said Andrew Wulf, executive director of the Palace and the museum.
“We just can’t keep nailing things” to the building, he said Wednesday during a brief interview on the Palace portal facing the Plaza, where the bulk of Fiesta activities take place each September.
The Santa Fe Fiesta Council is not happy with the request, which came in a July 11 letter from Wulf to the council president. In it, Wulf cites “serious concern” expressed by the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division “over the cumulative damage that the wood beams have incurred over the years of hanging said crests to the point that the historic wood is closely reaching a tipping point.”
Melissa Mascarenas, president of the group whose volunteers organize and oversee the Fiesta de Santa Fe, said she contacted Wulf ’s boss, New Mexico Cultural Affairs Secretary Veronica Gonzales to make a case for preserving the tradition.
“We’re gonna fight it,” Mascarenas said Wednesday. “It’s an ongoing tradition and we’re not going to give up on it.”
How long the practice goes back she could not say. The Fiesta de Santa Fe, established by proclamation in 1712, is in its 306th year and considered the longest-running continuous community celebration in the United States.
It has primarily religious roots as a commemoration of the reoccupation of Santa Fe by Don Diego de Vargas in 1692. De Vargas and his column reclaimed the city from Pueblo Indians who occupied Santa Fe following the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. The Palace of the Governors survived the uprising and reoccupation.
The crests, or coats of arms, represent families involved in the Fiesta Council, as well as the men who accompanied De Vargas in 1692, Mascarenas said. She did not have a count of the number of plaques that are affixed to the Palace, but
said they line the facade from end to end and also hang on the portal of First National 1870, the bank on Lincoln Avenue facing the Plaza’s northwest corner, and elsewhere such as on tree trunks in the Plaza.
While Mascarenas didn’t know how long the crests have been part of the Fiesta, the oldest photographs of the event show them.
“We’re not doing any damage,” she said. “I took some pictures Monday and you can see the wood is damaged, but I don’t know who damaged it.”
She said she sent Gonzales the photographs along with a meeting request. A call from The New Mexican to Gonzales’ office Wednesday was not returned.
Jeff Pappas, state historic preservation officer, was out of the office Wednesday and unavailable for comment, said Michelle Ensey, the deputy state historic preservation officer. She said she was unaware of the letter or the issue itself.
Wulf ’s letter states that while the museum recognizes “the historical significance of the family crests, we at the Palace of the Governors along with the NM Historic Preservation Division request that this practice be discontinued immediately to avoid further deterioration and damage to the historic woodwork of the portal.”
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has designated the Palace as a National Treasure, he wrote.
Wednesday, he said options may exist to hang the crests elsewhere.
“We’re trying to be the best stewards possible,” Wulf said of the Palace, known as the nation’s oldest continuously used public building.
Mascarenas said the crests don’t actually hang on the building itself but on a frame made of twoby-six and two-by-four lumber that is attached by screws at either end of the portal. She said the idea for that approach arose about 10 years ago at the suggestion of Frances Levine, former director of the New Mexico History Museum and the Palace of the Governors.
The wood beams noted by the Historic Preservation Division can’t be very old, she said. About a third of the portal was heavily damaged on June 9, 1993, when a 14-year-old driver crashed a 1988 Nissan Pathfinder into three of the wooden columns supporting the structure, according to a New Mexican report at the time.
Damage to the portal, which had been remodeled in 1913 in what became the widely copied Spanish-Pueblo Revival style, was estimated to be worth $250,000.
The museum itself has flagpole holders mounted on the building, Mascarenas noted.
She said she could not agree to ending the practice without first putting the matter before the Fiesta Council’s general membership, some of whom are “pretty irate,” she said. “They’re upset with our traditions being taken away.”
The issue arises amid negotiations aimed at making changes to an event staged by the Caballeros de Vargas during Fiesta, a re-enactment of De Vargas’ arrival known as the Entrada. Talks have been held in recent years between the sponsors and others, including Pueblo Indian representatives. Increasingly vocal protests over the re-enactment’s historical accuracy and other issues have marked the performance in recent years.
Parties to the closed-door meetings said earlier this month that they were making progress. Matt Ross, a spokesman for the city of Santa Fe, which annually cedes use of the Plaza and surrounding streets to the Fiesta Council, could not be reached Wednesday. Mayor Alan Webber reportedly has taken part in those meetings.