Adele Oliveira I The New Mexican

A wild domesticityRandall Davey and the Audubon Center

he twin cottonwoods that dominate the lawn at the RandallDavey Audubon Center and Sanctuary look like they’ve beenthere forever. From the dirt road, which curves away from thepink house and then back toward it, the trees nearly obscurethe view of the building. When you get closer, you’ll see the

erosion-exposed lacelike roots of the cottonwoods, which are planted atthe edge of the flagstone patio right where the lawn, still one of the biggestand best-watered in Santa Fe, begins to slope. Two faded murals, more likefrescos, on the front of the house depict burros (small children consistentlycall the spotted and unusually tall equines giraffes) plucking fruit from theorchard below.

From the lawn, Picacho Peak rises to the south; the 400-year-old acequia,now piped underground, marks the lawn’s eastern border; a round hilldotted with juniper dominates the view to the west; and the mouth of AztecSprings canyon is just visible to the north before it bends east. Surveying thesurrounding landscape, one feels a little queenly (or kingly), as though thisoblong rectangle of patchy green (it’s been a dry year) is the nexus of some-thing vital. It is impossible to visit the center and not wish you lived there.

I did live on the property, the summer I was 19. I applied to be an educa-tional intern not for the stipend or out of an interest in birding but becauseI wanted to live in the guest cottage, originally a chicken coop. I wanted apiece of the center and the house for myself, if only for a little while. I amone in a long line of Santa Feans and visitors who love RDAC and returnthere to satisfy any number of indistinct emotions that are difficult to defineand harder to discuss. How do you write a love letter to a piece of property?

The 135 acres that the sanctuary comprises were gifted to the NationalAudubon Society in 1983. Kate Holt Cullum, Davey’s heir and sister-in-law,lived on the property for many years following her sister Isabel’s (Davey’swife) death in 1963 and Davey’s in 1964. Holt Cullum died in 1981 and leftthe fate of the estate to the Randall Davey Committee, which later donatedthe property to the Audubon Society. A stipulation of the gift was the preser-vation of the property: if you visit now, the house and grounds appear muchas they did in Davey’s day. “Historic preservation isn’t central to Audubon’smission,” explained operations manager Carl Beal as he led a small tourthrough Davey’s house and studio. In fact, the Nature Conservancy passed onthe Davey property in the ’80s because the conservation of the house and themanagement of the collection fell outside that organization’s jurisdiction.

T he building that was once Davey’s house is now most akin to afascinating walk-through museum. The main structure was originallya sawmill erected by the Army Quartermaster in 1847. The timbers

that were used to build Fort Marcy were processed at the mill. The propertywas bought and sold several times during the second half of the 19th century,until the young artist Davey, on a 1919 summer road trip to Santa Fe fromNew York with his friend and fellow artist John Sloan and their wives, visitedthe grounds and fell in love with them. The following year, Davey purchasedthe property. He renovated the rustic sawmill into a comfortable home, addinga second story (with a concrete floor, no less) a greenhouse, and a dark, secretbar built into the hillside (it was during Prohibition).

Incorporated in 1905, the National Audubon Society is dedicated tothe preservation of birds and wildlife, and takes its name from John James

Audubon, the 19th-century artist and naturalist who is best-known for hisdepiction of North American birds. In the broadest sense, the intersectionof art and nature is at once obvious and slippery. Art and nature are eachbeautiful (or can be), have influenced each other forever, and are subject topoliticization. At the Randall Davey Audubon Center, the combination oftwo objectives (environmental conservation and the preservation of Davey’slegacy) dovetail in a way that’s natural and easy.

Art is central to RDAC by default and by design: there’s no escapingDavey’s presence, even if you’re just there to take a quick hike up Bear

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Randall Davey by car with rifle and brace of ducks; courtesy Palace of theGovernors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), Negative No. PA-MU-127.1

Opposite page, exterior view of Randall Davey home, circa 1935; photoby T. Harmon Parkhurst; courtesy Palace of the Governors Photo Archives(NMHM/DCA), Negative No. 032110

32 September 14-20, 2012

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