Taos homeowner to appear on PBS show
A Taos homeowner is set to be featured on national television in April after PBS TV series “Legacy List with Matt Paxton” filmed the final episode of their third season about Marcia Gonzales-Kimbrough, who owns a property on the south side of the Town of Taos.
The show — hosted by Paxton, one the former hosts of the international TV hit “Hoarders” — focuses on decluttering and downsizing households around the country that have gathered collections of generations worth of items, some of which may be gems from times past.
In the episode, which was filmed after the pandemic began to wane, Paxton helped GonzalesKimbrough go through the various hidden treasures of her former home, including numerous historical items and evidence that her grandfather spent time working for the government in secret military laboratories.
Built in the early 1960s, the home was constructed with a more modern approach to adobe, according to Gonzales-Kimbrough. However, her family is no stranger to the area. She said her ancestors were some of the first settlers to establish the area of Valdez, just north of Arroyo Seco. In fact, Gonzales-Kimbrough said the Italianos Trail on the road to Taos Ski Valley was named after her great-grandmother's grandfather, who used to herd sheep up the trail. She said she can trace her family back at least 10 generations on her father's side in the area.
Gonzales-Kimbrough said she wrote into the show after seeing Matt Paxton give a speech about decluttering at an AARP seminar in 2019. She realized she could use the help while cleaning out her grandfather's house. Paxton, who is currently promoting his new book, “Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff: Declutter, Downsize, and Move Forward With Your Life,” agreed.
In an interview with the Taos News, Paxton said he found Gonzales-Kimbrough's family story interesting, and was originally hoping to squeeze it into the second season of the show, but it wasn't feasible. “[Gonzales-Kimbrough] was one of the first people we called going into season three, just hoping that we'd be able to get them,” said Paxton.
While looking through Gonzales-Kimbrough's house, Paxton and his team searched for relics of local family history. Because her grandfather used to herd sheep,
Gonzales-Kimbrough said an old loom was found, alongside wool that appeared to be decades old.
The team also searched for information about GonzalesKimbrough's grandfather's past. Over the course of their discovery, they found that her grandfather had worked in Los Alamos, Area 51, White Sands and possibly other government facilities in the Southwest.
Paxton and his crew chose to film their final episode of the third season with Gonazles-Kimbrough — and ended up spending much more time in the Taos area than expected.
“When we got to Taos, the history that we learned, and the people, and the food, and the
spirit and spirituality — it's such an amazing place. And just everybody we met, they know their history, and they are super passionate about it,” said Paxton.
After the season wrapped up, Paxton said he and the crew “flew our partners and our spouses out, and so everybody had family of some kind there for the last episode in Taos,” he said. “It was really nice to be with our crew in that super-spiritual way, because for us, it was just a reminder that ‘Yeah, we want to keep making positive TV, and good TV, and something that people actually watch and appreciate.'”
“They fit right into the congeniality and the welcomeness of what people in Taos are all about,” said Gonzales-Kimbrough of Paxton and his staff. “The crew was really, really respectful about how to tell, but not immerse the program into the tri-culturalism of Taos,” she added, referring to the complicated history of Native Americans, Spanish and Anglo settlers in Northern New Mexico.
After Paxton and his team cleared the house, Gonzales-Kimbrough — who lives in California but spends time in Taos — said she is not quite sure of its immediate future, but knows it will “somehow stay in the family,” she said. “It needs work – structural work — but we definitely want to keep the original adobe walls, the Vega and wood slat roof ceiling. It has to be remodeled to lived in.”
For now, the property is in the hands of her and her five siblings, who all carry on the legacy of Northern New Mexico.
The episode featuring Marcia Gonazales-Kimbrough will air on Sunday (April 17) on PBS (Channel 5.1) at 1 p.m. Mountain Time.