Santa Fe National Cemetery, Lodge, 501 North Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS NM-4-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

501 North Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, Santa Fe County, New Mexico. The coordinates for the Santa Fe National Cemetery, Lodge are W and N, and they were obtained in August with, it is assumed, NAD There is no restriction on the release of the locational data to the public.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS NM-4-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

National Cemetery Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Prior to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was known as the Veterans Administration. The Veterans Administration took over management of Santa Fe National Cemetery from the U.S. Army in (Public Law Date: altered Builder/Contractor: Unknown. Description: The Pueblo Revival style lodge is a two-story building made of rough-cut sandstone with a flat roof covered in polyurethane. Parapets rise above the roofline. The principal elevation faces west. The windows are double-hung, wood sash glazed with two-over-two lights. With the inset porch, the lodge has a rectangular footprint and accommodates the dual purpose of the lodge as an office for the cemetery and as a residence for the superintendent and his family.

Doors from the public and private spaces open onto the porch giving it two fronts. Elements of the Pueblo Revival style included in the design of the lodge include the flat roof, thick walls, and canales (waterspout to drain the roof). The stone lodge initially built according to the design for an expanded L-plan with a hip roof was completely renovated in to through the WPA. Previous upgrades to the L-plan lodge included connecting it to modern water systems and installing a new steam heating system. In a cleanout door was inserted into the chimney. By when the renovations were complete, a flat roof replaced the hip roof, and the parapets were added.

Also, the porch was replaced with the present stone porch at the west end of the south elevation/south end of the west (front) elevation, an addition on the north elevation for a dining room was built, hardwood floors were put down, walls were plastered, closets were made or lined with shelves, and the bathroom received new fixtures. The east door to the kitchen was closed, and two sash windows were put in its place. Systems, like electricity, were modernized. Intermittently, thereafter, the building was painted, and its roof demanded attention. Linoleum flooring was installed in the office in and shades were ordered in Aluminum doors and windows followed in Seven vigas and three canales were removed. SANTA FE NATIONAL CEMETERY,

Lodge Hals

No. NM-4-A (page 2) Site Context: The lodge faces west toward Rosalie Drive and N. Guadalupe Street, and is located to the northern edge of the original cemetery lots. The lodge is also in proximity to the main entrance gates. The grounds were expanded, and today the cemetery follows the curve of Guadalupe Street and is bounded by the highway to the north which gives it an irregular footprint. The Rostrum is located to the north end of the grounds. History: Please see the contextual report for an analysis of the architectural development of the lodge as a building type for the national cemeteries and its place within this prescribed landscape (HALS No.

In Congress authorized the appropriation of land for use as national cemeteries so that the Union soldiers who perished in service to their country could be buried with honor. These became the first cemeteries in the national cemetery system; by the end of the decade almost men were buried in seventy-three national cemeteries. By that time the Office of the Quartermaster General, and the Quartermaster Montgomery C. Meigs in particular, had developed an architectural program for the cemetery. The program created for the national cemeteries included an enclosing wall demarcating the grounds and ornamental iron gates cast to instill reverence to those who entered and calm the wrought emotions of a nation in mourning for its lost sons.

Specific plantings, such as the Osage-orange hedge and various trees, were selected to give a pleasing appearance and, likely, to screen outbuildings - the business of cemetery maintenance - from public view. Less a commemorative architectural statement, the superintendent s lodge combined practicality with a respectful presence. Lodge plans first evolved from expedient wood-frame cottages to masonry buildings one-story in height and with a three-room floor plan.

Construction of the temporary wood-frame lodges took place in the years to and overlapped with the construction of the first permanent masonry lodges built to a standard, single-story design from to Officers in charge of the cemeteries soon found the floor plans of the temporary wood lodges and the first permanent masonry lodges inconvenient and, increasingly, unattractive. Moreover, representatives from the Quartermaster General s Office noted these three-room models were often too small for a superintendent and his family, and so in plans for a six- room, one and one-half story type were acquired from Edward Clark, Architect of the Capitol Extension. The design was refined over the next two years and in drawn for the Quartermaster General Montgomery C. Meigs s approval.

This standard plan featured a mansard roof and so became associated with the French or Second Empire style. Contemporary buildings, domestic and civic, exhibited this aesthetic and so the choice of the Quartermaster for a Second Empire style lodge is in keeping with national architectural trends as well as the personal taste of Meigs whose house also was erected in the Second Empire style. On the national stage, Alfred Mullet designed the Old Executive Office building in Washington, DC, a building whose construction in the coincided with the building of lodges in the Second Empire style in many of the national cemeteries. The National Cemetery Administration identifies the Second Empire style lodge, referred to in SANTA FE NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No.

NM-4-A (page 3) the as the usual type, or even the full Meigs plan likely in reference to the Quartermaster s endorsement of the design, as the first generation of permanent lodges. It reflects a concerted effort to standardize what a national cemetery, including the lodge, should look like. The last cemeteries for which the Quartermaster contracted for this style of lodge were for Mobile, Alabama, and Beaufort, South Carolina, in The L-plan was revised in for the lodge in San Francisco, and then employed for the lodges in Mound City and Loudon Park. The revised plan was further improved for the construction of the lodge at Cypress Hills.

The revision to the standard L-plan primarily included a change in roof form from the mansard to a cross-gable and the use of banded brick in the exterior walls. Cypress Hills was a simpler expression of the type, with segmental arches over the windows instead of stone lintels and having no banded exterior brick in the walls. In the the plans called for an elongated office wing. This change to the L-plan accommodated an entrance hall in the middle of the building; the elongated L-plan was built in Santa Fe, Fort Smith, and Fort Leavenworth. By the century s end, standards of living called for conveniences the L-plan lodges lacked.

Advances in plumbing and heating technologies, in particular, made the L-plan outdated as expectations about the appropriate level of domestic sanitation that the government should provide to its employees changed. Even so, the Quartermaster omitted indoor toilets from the lodge floor plans until Maintenance of the existing lodges, as well as ell additions, addressed some of the inconveniences of the older buildings, and made the lodges more comfortable as living spaces. Between the and improvements to the existing lodges included the installation of indoor plumbing and bathrooms, central heating, closets and cupboards; adding a kitchen ell and converting the original kitchen into a dining room; and maintenance of windows, shutters, and porches.

By the Quartermaster determined some lodges warranted a complete overall, rather than renovation, and the department began to replace some of the buildings in the national cemeteries. For the new lodges, it created a succession of twenty-two different plans between and Nine of these plans were used to build multiple lodges, but thirteen were unique designs, used only once. Compared to the extended popularity of the L-plan, which lasted from to in its mansard-roof form and to in its later variations, the rapid succession of designs in the twentieth century suggests a new awareness among those directing the cemeteries of the need to construct lodges that were aesthetically and technologically up-to-date.

Over five decades, the Quartermaster endorsed a progression of plans from four-squares to bungalows to Colonial Revival designs and then to suburban ramblers. This progression paralleled the changes in form, style, building materials, and construction practices that occurred in the private housing market. Most of the lodges built in the twentieth century are indistinguishable from typical American middle-class and upper-middle-class suburban dwellings, with the exception of a second entrance for the superintendent s office.

In some instances, such as in Hampton, Virginia, and in Annapolis, Maryland, the army made a particular effort to match new lodges to their local surroundings, usually by building period-revival designs in places where those designs would SANTA FE NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No. NM-4-A (page 4) have particular resonance.

In a nod to the colonial heritage of the Chesapeake, the Quartermaster built one-and-one-half-story brick lodges in a Colonial Revival style at these cemeteries in In another example, the desire to match designs to localities prompted the alteration of the L-plan lodge at San Francisco into a Spanish Mission Revival building in and the similarly extensive reconstruction of the Santa Fe lodge into the Pueblo Revival style in The Santa Fe lodge is significant as one of the buildings renovated through the WPA program, and as an example of the Quartermaster s effort to accommodate local building traditions in the designs for modern lodges in the national cemetery system. It is also the only example of the Pueblo Revival style adapted for housing the cemetery superintendents.

While the lodge in Santa Fe National Cemetery was substantially built, the cemetery s beginnings were less sure. The city of Santa Fe fell to the Confederates briefly only to be abandoned in April The Confederate soldiers retreated down the Rio Grande, and additional Union soldiers arrived in the summer months to further secure the area. After the war, a small cemetery was established outside of Santa Fe for the re-burial of the remains of Union soldiers who died during the war, particularly those who died during the engagements. The Roman Catholic Diocese donated the land for the cemetery to the government in Additional parcels were purchased from the church in but the cemetery was classified as a post cemetery the following year. Not until did it regain its status as a national cemetery.

Two years later additional acreage was acquired and the following year, the lodge was constructed. In improvements were underway at the national cemetery and by December plans for a permanent lodge were developing. It was recommended that the lodge be built of adobe and accompanying lists of material costs imply this option was seriously considered. Also in December officials offered an explanation for the type of lodge selected, since it differed from the definitive plan. It was put forward that with economy and the addition of a porch not shown on the plan, the lodge, as proposed, would resemble the Officer s Quarters, either already built on site or already approved to be built there. Plans and elevations for a lodge contemplated at Santa Fe follow this correspondence.

The changes to the standard design for the L-plan lodge included only two rooms on the second floor for bedrooms. In Santa Fe, the sixth living room was on the main floor, providing a kitchen, dining room and family room along one arm of the L and the office on the other. The building drawn in elevation shows a cross gable, with wood sash windows glazed with four-over-four lights. The door has a transom and sidelights. The walls are smooth, possibly to represent adobe, and rest on a stone foundation. Estimates were received in January The project was suspended until the cemetery was reinstated to the national system in and the lodge built in was stone not adobe. In the survey of the cemetery identified the lodge as a sandstone, two-story building with a hip roof and dormer window.

The expanded L-plan lodge would serve the cemetery superintendent until WPA funding became available in the for a major renovation.

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS NM-4-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

SANTA FE NATIONAL CEMETERY, LODGE HALS No. NM-4-A (page 5) Annual Report of the Secretary of War. [to Congress]. Washington, DC: GPO, Deetz, James. In Small Things Forgotten: The Archaeology of Early American Life. New York: Doubleday, Dickinson, William C., Dean A. Herrin, and Donald R. Kennon, eds. Montgomery C. Meigs and the Building of the Nation s Capital. Athens: University of Ohio Press for the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, General Correspondence and Reports Relating to National and Post Cemeteries, 1865-ca. Record Group 92, Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, National Archives Building, Washington, DC. Holt, Dean W. American Military Cemeteries: A Comprehensive Illustrated Guide to the Hallowed Grounds of the United States, Including Cemeteries Overseas.

Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, Message of the President of the United States [to Congress]. Washington, DC: GPO, Meyer, Richard E., ed. Cemeteries and Gravemarkers: Voices of American Culture. Logan: Utah State University Press, National Cemetery Historical File, Department of Memorial Affairs, Record Group 15, Records of the Veterans Administration, National Archives Building, Washington, DC. Sloane, David Charles. The Last Great Necessity: Cemeteries in American History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Zipf, Catherine W. Marking Union Victory in the South: The Construction of the National Cemetery System. In Monuments to the Lost Cause: Women, Art, and the Landscapes of Southern Memory, edited by Cynthia Mills and Pamela H. Simpson.

Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,

Source document Quoted word for word from HALS NM-4-A. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

The documentation of the lodges and rostrums in the national cemeteries was undertaken by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), one of the Heritage Documentation Programs of the National Park Service, Richard O'Connor, Chief. The project was sponsored by the National Cemetery Administration (NCA) of the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Sara Amy Leach, Senior Historian. Project planning was coordinated by Catherine C. Lavoie, Chief of HABS. Historical research was undertaken by HABS Historians Virginia B. Price and Michael R. Harrison. NCA Historians Jennifer Perunko, Alec Bennett, and Hillori Schenker provided research material, edited and reviewed written reports.

Field work for selected sites was carried out and measured drawings produced by HABS Architects Paul Davidson, Ryan Pierce, and Mark Schara.