THE SOUND OF the Wingfield Heritage House Museum screen door slamming shut on a sunny March morning delights Susan Lutterman. It sounds just like the original, she says, and evokes memories of her childhood more than 50 years ago, when she’d charge into what was then her aunt and uncle’s home.
The door also demonstrates the amazing attention to detail with which the house, built in 1920 by Lutterman’s great-grandparents Ike and Lula Wingfield, was restored by the Village of Ruidoso. Home to Wingfield family members until 1973, the two-story building later served as a ski shop and a restaurant. When village councillors learned it was for sale, they seized the opportunity to create something that had long eluded Ruidoso: a museum dedicated to the village’s history and its first family. Purchased in 2020, the Wingfield Heritage House Museum opened in October 2024 after extensive renovations.
Manager and curator Stephanie Long starts my tour of the exhibit space at the massive original stone fireplace, where family portraits from the late 19th and early 20th centuries line the mantel. On an adjacent wall, a panoramic photograph of the Wingfield property circa 1930 showcases the house and the family’s store, cafe, and post office across the street. “It shows us what the Wingfields were all about 100 years ago,” Long says.
The Wingfield Heritage House Museum preserves pieces of Ruidoso's past inside a restored family home on Sudderth Drive.
Photograph courtesy of Wingfield Heritage House Museum.
Nearby, I spot the Wingfield House family album, a binder that provides historical context for the building itself and some of its familial gems. A glass case displays Lula Wingfield’s leather arm-guard cuffs that protected her during horseback rides and a hand mirror engraved with the initials of Ike and Lula’s older daughter, Della. “Della liked to put her name and initials on things, which is nice because we know what belonged to her,” Long tells me. The same case holds a 1925 mandolin that belonged to Walter Morrison, who married Della in 1931.
Other displays contain stuffed Smokey Bears to commemorate this year’s 50th anniversary of the Smokey Bear Hotshots, a Mescalero Apache cradleboard surrounded by kachinas, and artifacts from area archaeological sites.
While the space already holds a trove of treasures, there’s more to come. Six steamer trunks packed with personal items and business records are stored at Lutterman’s home. “We’ve cataloged 2,000 items already,” she tells me. “Back then, people kept every piece of paper.
“My hope is that my family would be very proud of what we’ve done here,” she adds. “I think they would be. This museum is a work of love.”
THREE TO SEE
Don’t miss these museum items on your visit.
A beaded red evening bag owned by Wingfield sisters Della and Opal in the 1920s. “Della and her sister, Opal, often got dolled up,” says manager and curator Stephanie Long.
A bell, made in 1938 through the Works Progress Administration, once sat atop a one-room schoolhouse. It was later kept at the village hall and then at Sierra Vista Primary School.
The brightly painted door from Adobe Plaza, which opened in 1963, was created by local artist Dave Travis and salvaged from the building after the 2024 South Fork Fire.
