Take a Stroll Down Canyon Road

“There’s a history of authenticity and integrity on Canyon Road that you don’t have anywhere else,” says Tonya Turner Carroll, who co-founded Turner Carroll Gallery with her husband, Michael Carroll, in 1991. From the contemporary gallery’s perch at the top of the street, she’s watched the district develop from a sleepy byway to a magnet for international art buyers. “It’s an art market that’s not based on hype,” she adds. “You can participate in the art world without the stress and pressure of bigger markets.”

I’ve worked on Canyon Road, on and off, for 25 years, first as a teenage restaurant hostess and later, in the 2010s, as a gallery director. Tonight, I’m here to wander and reminisce along this lively thoroughfare, which has always been more than a simple way to get from A to B. 

MUCH OF CANYON ROAD’S CHARM RESULTS from the natural way it came together over time. No one laid it out with a ruler, and the oldest intact buildings, now home to Aurelia Gallery, date back to the 1730s. As new homes and small stores popped up in the succeeding years, they followed the gently sloped path the road gave them—some built close to the curb, some even closer, all in a wabi-sabi harmony that gives the area a cozy, eclectic feel. 

Beginning in the first decades of the 20th century, artists were naturally drawn to this laid-back dirt road for its remoteness, color, clean mountain air, and views. Painter Gerald Cassidy was the first known artist to permanently reside there, when he bought 1000 Canyon Road in 1915. Quaker artist Olive Rush took up residence in 1920, when she bought an old adobe farmhouse; and printmaker Gustave Baumann kept a studio at 140 Canyon Road. By the 1960s, Canyon Road had secured a residential mixed-use art-zone designation, which allowed the still-growing bohemian art community to sell art from their homes. 

“Canyon Road started with working artists, who rolled out futons to sleep at night and then hung paintings on the walls during the day,” Turner Carroll says. By the ’80s, there were a handful of established art galleries, but as a place to buy fine art, she says, it was still sometimes considered something of a backwater. As an art-loving recent college graduate, however, she fell in love with its unfussy, untamed attitude during a 1989 road trip with Michael. She turned down a prestigious internship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York City, to move to Santa Fe, much to the dismay of her college art history adviser. “He said, ‘You’re turning down the Met for the land of howling coyotes?’ ” she recalls.

Canyon Road does its fair share of catering to the Southwest-oriented art market, and you’ll find buffalo sculptures and paintings of desert sunsets along the way. But that’s hardly been Turner Carroll’s singular experience over the past 30-plus years. “Early on, galleries understood that in order to be a destination for art collectors, we had to engage visitors and make them feel welcome,” she says of the variety of galleries and shops. “We still work together on Canyon Road to create a unique, friendly experience that you can’t find anywhere else.”

Elaine Ritchel, founder of Santa Fe Art Tours, leads a Canyon Road Art & History Tour that acts as a curated gallery hop and art appreciation crash course. For the past 10 years, she has traveled the arts district multiple times a week, often several times a day. “I never get tired of it,” she says. “The diversity of work you find here is mind-blowing.”

Within a few blocks, visitors can see works by the Taos Society of Artists and traditional Pueblo pottery, lithographs by French modernists Marc Chagall and Georges Braque, and work by emerging artists from throughout New Mexico. One of Ritchel’s favorite stops is Zaplin Lampert Gallery, which features work by early Santa Fe Art Colony painters like Will Shuster and Fremont Ellis, as well as contemporary Diné mixed-media artist Tony Abeyta. “Canyon Road’s evolution from dirt path to gallery row is a source of fascination for visitors,” Ritchel says. “They’re always amazed to find out that this wasn’t a commercial arts district until relatively recently.” 

Ritchel’s tours often attract multigenerational groups—grandparents, parents, and even children—who travel and learn about the road together. “Canyon Road’s warm and friendly art scene makes it feel special too,” she says.

IF STEPPING INTO A GALLERY ON CANYON ROAD feels oddly familiar—almost like being welcomed into someone’s home—it’s because many of these spaces were once actual houses, whose creaky hardwood floors and four-foot-thick adobe walls are still very much in use. 

Tucked at the end of a dirt path near the center of Canyon Road, Desert Moss Vintage has deeper ties to the area’s history than many of its neighbors. Opened in 2019, the compact store is brimming with awesome old stuff: 40-year-old baseball hats, threadbare graphic tees, and leather belts incised with names like Cleve and Nance. 

As I browse, owner Esteban Rios y Torres fills me in on what life was like here during the ’80s and ’90s. “I remember inner tubing down hillsides in the snow as a kid, before there were buildings in the way,” says Rios y Torres, who’d often buy candy and treats on store credit at Gormley General Store, which now houses Nüart Gallery. 

Rios y Torres’s Mexico-born paternal grandfather, Jesus, fell in love with a local girl, Teresa Garcia, and opened the Rios Wood and Coal Yard near Canyon Road and Camino del Monte Sol in the 1940s. Despite multiple offers on the property over the years, the Rios family still sells cords of piñon firewood from the large lot attached to Jesus and Teresa’s original home. 

In the 1970s, Rios y Torres’s mother opened Rios Leatherworks, specializing in handcrafted Western boots, which operated for nearly 20 years in the building currently occupied by Desert Moss Vintage. “People visit Canyon Road and fall in love with it and want a story to take home,” says Rios y Torres, who lives nearby with his wife and son. “It’s considered a prestigious art mecca, but there are still families living here.” 

Despite its low-key vibe, Canyon Road’s status as a place to shop for pricey art means it isn’t always top of mind for locals. Maggie Fine grew up attending Canyon Road’s annual Christmas Eve Farolito Walk, which sees businesses stay open late, decorating sidewalks, rooftops, and pathways with glowing paper-bag lanterns. “I remember people singing around firepits and passing out hot chocolate,” Fine says. “From a kid’s perspective, it was magic.” 

But the native Santa Fean, who lives here with her husband and daughter, often found herself yearning for more memory-making family activities on Canyon Road. So last summer, Fine launched the Canyon Road Summer Walk series, held the first Wednesday of the month from June through September and as a special event on Halloween.

The evening event pulls together hundreds of partnerships between businesses and creatives for a midweek break. Food vendors such as Alicia’s Tortilleria restaurant and La Lecheria ice cream shop pop up in gallery gardens, while the silky sounds of local musicians like Randy Sanchez and David Berkeley waft from verdant courtyards. For Fine, building bridges between creative Santa Feans is a crucial facet of participating in a community. “I ran right into my third-grade teacher,” Fine says. “Then I turned around and bumped into my first boss.” 

On the July 2 walk, Fine plans to bring together a gaggle of local artists and musicians, including singer-songwriter Jono Manson and filmmaker Godfrey Reggio, for a cabaret-style performance in honor of Claude’s Bar, the long-gone neighborhood watering hole known for its rowdy clientele. “It’s been incredible to see people writing songs for the cabaret and letting their imaginations run wild,” Fine says of the show, which will be held at the Neptune Event Space. “It will be fun to add a late-night element to the Summer Walk.” 

Since no meandering Canyon Road stroll is complete without a pit stop for refreshments, I’ve made plans to meet my aunt at the Compound. As I snag two seats at the popular sunken bar and wait for her to arrive, I take in the chic interior of what’s often considered the city’s first fine-dining restaurant, designed by Alexander Girard in 1966. 

Although I’m by myself for now, I realize I never feel lonely on Canyon Road. Maybe that’s because signs of past and present life are everywhere—in walled gardens, tilted mailboxes, stone paths, and apricot trees planted a hundred years ago.

Read more: Santa Fe can seem like a maze of art—hundreds of galleries, museums, and events. Here’s how to map it out.