Susan Stella first fell in love with the brown and rose-colored badlands of New Mexico when she was a girl. The interior designer (susanmstella.com) bought a two-bedroom 1972 pueblo house in Tesuque, a river-valley village that feels rural though it’s minutes from Santa Fe. The home needed stucco repairs and a new roof, so Stella took the opportunity to make some historically minded renovations. “I wanted it to look worn in,” she says. “Nothing new or shiny.” She used clay plaster and paint on the walls, replaced windowsills with hand-hewn pine, and added traditional banco seating.
At first, Stella decorated with New Mexican and Spanish colonial antiques in a spot-on rendition of Southwestern style. But lately, she’s sprinkled in Moroccan pieces from her travels, as well as a few midcentury touches inspired by a trip to Georgia O’Keeffe’s home: a Saarinen womb chair and a Noguchi coffee table, among others. The mix hits Stella’s sweet spot. “ ‘The historical meets the modern’ is really exciting,” she says. “Here, I feel creative.”