New Mexico’s most famous resort, Ghost Ranch,
has charmed many visitors. One overwhelmed admirer proclaimed that
any description of the place amounted to “an advertisement for God
and New Mexico.” Area historian Lesley Poling-Kempes tells the
story of Ghost Ranch and its lovers in her absorbing new book,
Ghost Ranch.
Ghost Ranch covers 20,000
acres of spare, wild earth at the northern edge of the Piedra
Lumbre basin in north-central New Mexico, where El Rito del Yeso
begins its journey toward the Chama River.
For centuries,
Tewas, Navajos, and Apaches hunted seasonally in Yeso Canyon. In
the late 1800s, after ranchers hanged a gang of cattle rustlers
there, locals swore the place was haunted and dubbed it el rancho
de los brujos — the ranch of the witches. A poker win in 1927
delivered the land to Carol Stanley, a Boston-born musician who
ventured West and eked out a living managing guest houses. Stanley
named the place Ghost Ranch and built its casitas and bunkhouses.
By the time she sold the ranch in 1935, it was renowned among its
wealthy clientele for “practical simplicity” and epic beauty.
A frequent guest at the ranch, painter Georgia
O’Keeffe purchased a cottage there and became the most famous
of Ghost Ranch’s lovers. O’Keeffe immortalized the
surreal energy of those desert lands, painting iconic animal skulls
and cliffs throbbing under cloudless skies. The local landmark,
Cerro Pedernal, “is my private mountain,” she once declared. “God
told me if I painted it enough, I could have it.”
Ghost
Ranch is now a Presbyterian retreat center open to all
denominations. And the magic that ensnared O’Keeffe lingers,
writes Poling-Kempes: “Every person who has ever called Ghost Ranch
home for any length of time continues to call Ghost Ranch home for
the rest of their lives.”
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Eight decades of magic and beauty at Ghost Ranch.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
