Arlington Club: Santa Fe Art & Design Weekend

Welcome to the Southwest! After our arrival in Albuquerque, we’ll transfer to Santa Fe through vast, rocky desert scenery and wide open skies. We’ll see the picturesque town emerge among its greenery, still looking like a centuries-old pueblo unstuck in time. Santa Fe’s mix of indigenous, Mexican and Spanish influences is immediately apparent; it’s why Santa Fe is a true melting pot—of people, art, ideas and, of course, cuisine.

We’ll celebrate this fact at tonight’s welcome dinner, at a restaurant lauded locally and nationally for its pioneering use of regional ingredients for fresh and creative dishes. It’s a meld of contemporary and traditional Mexican cuisine, packed with salsas and chiles—the truest welcome to the Southwest.

Today we immerse ourselves in the unparalleled art scene of Santa Fe. First up: a personalized visit to a handful of the 80 galleries and studios on Canyon Road, the heart of Santa Fe’s historic arts district. We’ll meet the gallerists and artists, and explore a range of artwork from museum-quality historic painting and photography to contemporary and abstract art. Next, we’re off to the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, dedicated to Southwest arts and culture of through collaboration with the region’s native communities, for an exclusive curator-led look at its Private Vault collection.

We’ll have a private lunch and wine reception on the museum grounds. It’s an opportunity to taste some stand-out wines from New Mexico, considered America’s first wine region with a viticulture history dating to the 1620s. The afternoon is ours to enjoy back at the hotel, with time by the pool or at the spa, or simply to relax and admire the warm colors and vast skies. Afterwards dinner and the evening are ours to explore.

After breakfast we ride north to Taos Pueblo, through a landscape of desert chaparral and wide-open vistas. At this Native American World Heritage site, a local tribe member will lead us through a thousand years of indigenous history and art. We’ll have a chance to see more of the glory of Southwestern artwork up-close at the Millicent Rogers Museum. For lunch, it’s a contemporary spin on New Mexican fare, before stopping for a photo op at the Rio Grande Gorge and its famous High Bridge.

We can’t head all the way back to Santa Fe without stopping for a bit more culture and delicious food. In Chimayo, we’ll meet a multi-generational community of award-winning weavers and see those iconic, vibrant zigzag patterns and soft textures synonymous with the region. For dinner, we return to Santa Fe for a private seating at iconic Restaurant Martín, under the creative vision of chef Martín Rios. His list of accolades is impressive, to say the least, including an eight-time semifinalist and four-time finalist for the James Beard “Best Chef of the Southwest” award. This is Southwestern culture and cuisine at its finest.

We end our trip on an artistic high note: with a curator’s personal tour at SITE Museum, the region’s most innovative contemporary arts space. Exhibits dedicated to sculptor and photographer Petah Coyne and painter Mary Weatherford—Petah’s unreal molten wax sculptures, Mary’s spontaneous neon sponge paintings—are stunning and will play with all of our senses. It’s the perfect, artful end to our time together in New Mexico.

After a round of farewells, we’ll organize transfers back to Albuquerque’s ABQ airport. Your flight should be scheduled to depart at 3pm or later.