Gucci’s former designer Tom Ford said recently on Charlie Rose that if he had only six months to live, he’d “jump on a plane and go to Santa Fe.”Now, why would that be? The clean air? The breathtaking mountains? The vast open spaces? The contemporary art? The Southwestern food? The influence of Mexican and Native American cultures? Or the fact that, incredibly, all these elements exist in one relatively small place?

For a long time, smart, talented individuals who could live anywhere have chosen to live in and around a town that appears to have been made in some ancient clay pottery class. The uniqueness of the area, which drew Georgia O’Keeffe and other visionaries in the 1920s, is as evident today as it was then. What can you find there that you can’t find anywhere else? Plenty.

The Galleries

The city is the second biggest art market in the United States, after New York, says Craig Liebelt, director of the Santa Fe gallery Anderson Contemporary Art. Some credit for that goes to art patrons Anne and John Marion, who were major forces in founding the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and the celebrated Site Santa Fe exhibition. Since Site’s inception, ten years ago, the West’s sole art biennial has attracted important artists, devotees and dealers from around the world and has expanded the city’s cultural horizons beyond Southwestern painting and Native American textiles.

Today Santa Fe boasts more than 200 galleries, “more per capita than anywhere else in the country,” as New Mexico governor Bill Richardson points out. Whether you’re after contemporary art, a Remington or a Navajo rug, don’t miss these galleries.

James Kelly Contemporary specializes in provocative, chiefly nonrepresentational works by established European and American artists, such as paintings and prints by Ed Ruscha and minimalist works by the late Agnes Martin, of nearby Galisteo. 616 1/2 Canyon Rd., in Canyon Alley; 505-989-1601.

Linda Durham Contemporary Art, nearby, is another top spot for living artists, including New York painter (and Santa Fe native) Robert Kelly. Locals consider Durham a treasure for her enthusiasm — the kind one associates more with a collector than with a dealer. 1101 Paseo de Paralta; 505-466-6600.

Nedra Matteucci Galleries has jewelry by Spratling and Buccellati, bronzes by Frederic Remington, works by O’Keeffe and John Marin, and a sculpture garden. 1075 Paseo de Paralta; 505-982-4631. Matteucci’s Morning Star Gallery displays museum-quality Native American textiles and artifacts. 513 Canyon Rd.; 505-982-8187.

Gerald Peters, with outposts in Dallas and New York, is a significant source for works by Carol Anthony and other local contemporary artists, as well as for past and present masters of the American West and Southwest, including O’Keeffe. 1011 Paseo de Paralta; 505-954-5700.

One floor above the kitsch on Santa Fe Plaza, the city’s center of gravity, is Owings-Dewey Fine Art. Here I found woodcuts by Gustave Baumann and a Diego Rivera lithograph of a nude Frida Kahlo. Owners Nat Owings and Ray Dewey are low-key but highly reputable dealers in American art, particularly that of the Santa Fe Art Colony and the Taos Founders. 76 E. San Francisco St.; 505-982-6244.

Price-Dewey Galleries, devoted mainly to Native American textiles, artifacts and jewelry and Spanish colonial art, is across the plaza. In the two years since she bought the business from Ray Dewey, who had owned it for twenty-eight years, Victoria Price has brought new attention to the beauty and relevance of Native American work. “It’s not ethnographic material. It’s art, and it’s 20th-century modern art,” she says. Her interest began during childhood visits to New Mexican reservations with her father, the actor (and serious art collector) Vincent Price, whom President Eisenhower had appointed to the Department of the Interior’s Indian Arts and Crafts Board. Victoria grew up in a house where a chief’s blanket coexisted comfortably with a Diebenkorn. My favorites among the pieces in her gallery: a sweet-looking kachina doll and a black leather belt by Jan Loco, a Warm Springs Apache whose work has been purchased by Bruce Springsteen and Jane Fonda. 53 Old Santa Fe Trail; 505-982-8632.

Collectors will want to visit the Monroe Gallery of Photography (112 Don Gaspar; 505-992-0800) for prints by such masters as Margaret Bourke-White and Alfred Eisenstaedt. The Andrew Smith Gallery, Inc. (203 W. San Francisco St.; 505-984-1234) sells haunting landscapes by Ansel Adams.

Wearable Art

Ortega’s on the Plaza is tops for turquoise. What caught my attention: Oaxaca native Federico Jimenez’s huge dangling earrings shaped like flowers, massive silver cuffs studded with rows of tiny turquoise squares and a traffic-stopping sterling silver belt of antique turquoise flowers the size of hockey pucks. 101 W. San Francisco St.; 505-988-1866; 800-874-9297.

For the ultimate in cowgirl chic, head east to Nathalie, where former French Vogue editor Nathalie Kent’s romance with the West is interpreted in coral cowboy hats, hand-fringed deerskin miniskirts, chocolate suede gaucho pants that fit like a glove and cowboy boots with silver stars. 503 Canyon Rd.; 505-982-1021.

You’ll need a car or cab to reach the Ann Lawrence Collection; when you leave, you may need a U-Haul. New Yorker Ann Lawrence’s keen eye and exquisite taste reign in the vast loftlike shop, where she sells eye-popping accents for the home and the human figure. These include 1890s Portuguese majolica in the Palissy style; pillows and bedspreads made from mirrored or beaded tribal textiles from India and Afghanistan; and her specialty, handmade skirts, jackets and dresses that she reconfigures out of heirloom lace and embroidered fabrics she has collected for twenty years. Black lace from the ’40s looks young and new when fashioned into a flouncy miniskirt worn low on the hips. What Lawrence doesn’t make, she finds: gold-filigree drop earrings crafted in Mexico in the ’20s; a gold and turquoise Buddhist locket from Nepal; the softest pashmina shawls, made by Anna Trzebinski in Nairobi, with ostrich feathers sewn on by Masai women. 805 Early St.; 505-982-1755.

Someone says you’re “all hat and no cattle”? Well, it’s not a slight if your hat is a superfino from Montecristi Custom Hat Works. The consensus — among everyone from celebrities to working cowboys willing to give up two months’ wages for one — is that while owner Milton Johnson’s beaver-blend custom hats are beauties (and, according to Johnson, the shop’s best value, at $450 to $5,000), his handwoven superfino Panamas, priced at $3,000 to $20,000, live up to their legend. They’re made from paja toquilla, the silky, transparent fibers of Ecuadoran palm shoots; before the final product is manually creased, shaped and ironed to order on-site, it has passed through more than a hundred pairs of hands. One-of-a-kind hatbands range from simple braided leather strips to elaborate gold conchas, or disks, set with precious stones. 322 McKenzie St.; 505-983-9598.

The best belts are at James Reid, Ltd. Straps in variously colored French calf, teju lizard and ostrich can be paired with magnificently crafted buckles of silver and gold. A Reid belt can take you from trail to Tramps in London. 114 E. Palace Ave.; 800-545-2056.

Edible Art

While studying fashion design in Paris, New Orleans native Hayward Simoneaux began collecting antique chocolate molds. His tiny candy store, Todos Santos, is crammed with his signature shop-made dark chocolate milagros, covered in edible silver or twenty-three-karat gold leaf; palets d’ors, disks of dark chocolate flecked with gold; and tiny gingerbread-flavored chocolates and rose-scented marzipan from Vienna. Rumor has it that Tom Ford had a box filled with Simoneaux’s chocolate Kama-sutra figures placed on Stella McCartney’s pillow on her wedding night. 125 E. Palace Ave.; 505-982-3855.

Where to Stay

The Inn of the Five Graces gets my vote as one of the most charming hotels anywhere. Only a short walk from Santa Fe Plaza or Canyon Road, its six buildings, including a stone house and two connecting adobes, contain twenty-two apartmentlike suites, many with wood-burning fireplaces. Though there is no room service, the attentive staff is happy to bring frittatas or fruit to your room for breakfast. Upon your arrival, your refrigerator is stocked with goodies. Awaiting you at night are freshly baked cookies and a dream catcher for promoting unfettered slumber. Suites from $360 to $525. 150 E. DeVargas St.; 505-992-0957; 866-992-0957; fax: 505-955-0549; fivegraces.com.

Where to Eat

Geronimo is everyone’s choice for a grand lunch or dinner. Chef Eric DiStefano is known nationally for his heady cuisine, which is served in a 1756 white-walled adobe house. Governor Richardson raves about the wasabi-crusted rack of lamb. 724 Canyon Rd.; 505-982-1500.

Cafe Pasqual’s is great for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Go early to fortify yourself for a day of shopping with a bowl of cappuccino, accompanied by eggs and griddled stone-ground polenta with homemade chorizo, corn and red-chili sauce. 121 Don Gaspar; 505-983-9340.

For some local flavor, slide into a booth at Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen and order a steaming bowl of posole; a plate of appetizers, including tiny barbecued ribs and taquitos; and the town’s best margarita. 555 W. Cordova Rd.; 505-983-7929.

By Kathi Moshbacher
For Town and Country Magazine

Tags: Living in Santa Fe, Santa Fe Art, Santa Fe Homes, Santa Fe lifestyle, Santa Fe luxury, Santa Fe Restaurant