Our house is an adobe with 2850 sq. feet including three bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, a family room, living room, dining room and kitchen nook. We live on about 2 acres in a gated community that is surrounded by nature about 10 minutes north of the plaza and about 5 minutes from the opera in Santa Fe. The view from our living room is of the Sangre de Cristo Mts. and the Jemez mountains are out the kitchen window. We have complete privacy. We just bought the house a year ago and have remodeled nearly every part (new windows, roof, stucco, all new paint and new bathrooms and front door completed just a couple of weeks ago.) It is impossible not to be enchanted with Santa Fe: The food, the art films, the lectures, the music, the hikes, the mountain biking, the skiing, the food, the ease of everything, the food (did I mention the food?) are all extraordinarily accessible.

The weather here is delightful year round. It is sunny nearly every day, but although we have evaporative coolers if it gets hot in the summer, we never turned them on last summer, since it drops to nearly 50 every night, so all you ever need to do is open or close windows. We do get snow in the winter on occasion, but it is usually gone by 10:00 a.m., and is an excuse of a wonderful fire in the kiva at night. The fall is our favorite time of year with the aspen and chamiso turning yellow everywhere you look. It is still 75 during the day and bright and sunny every day!

Our house is on 2 acres in a gated community about 10 minutes north of the Plaza. We have spectacular view of both the Sangre de Cristo mountains (the ski mountains) and the Jemez, so the sun rises and sets over the surrounding mountains. Several famous folks like Robert Redford, Shirley Maclaine, Julia Roberts, and Valerie Plame live nearby, so you can find plenty of privacy. Hiking and biking opportunities abound in the immediate surrounding and skiing is less than an hour away. A wonderful golf course is 5 minutes away and we have a private tennis court in the neighborhood. Santa Fe is home to the 3rd largest art market in the U.S., so the galleries and museums are a constant source of delight. You can see a minimum of 10 art films any day of the week. The International Folk Art Festival, Indian Market, Spanish Market, and opera are highlights of the summer when you can hear live music free on the plaza every night. The Lensic features dance, music, lectures, and artists nearly every night. (Check their website for a sampling.) St. John's College also offers lectures and community courses throughout the year. And all of this is easily accessible, unlike a big city. Within an hour you can visit Georgia O'Keeffe's house, Bandelier National Park, Valles Caldera, Tent Rock National Park, Ojo Calente, 10,000 Waves Spa, and many many more natural and cultural delights.

We have especially enjoyed Renesan, a not for profit community education program. I'm taking three courses this fall including a New Yorker class and my husband is taking a politics in film course. The courses are about $25. It is remarkable to have a class full of Ph.D.s, J.D.s, M.D.s, and well-read folks of all stripes. It certainly makes for lively discussions! Having 10,000 (yes, I didn't add too many zeros) scientist at Los Alamos Research Lab in the neighborhood makes this a unique cultural setting. My daughters went to Smith College and my husband and I always longed to retire in a place like Northampton. Well, Santa Fe is Northampton with better weather!

Our house would be a wonderful sanctuary to write, think, do tai chi, study yoga, escape the craziness of city life while enjoying the cultural amenities of a city. Every morning you wake up to the smell of pinon, see the snow capped mountains while having a glass of wine in the living room, cook in the gourmet kitchen, or walk through the aspen in the fall, you'll be happy you made this exchange.

Dates and Rates

We would love to exchange for 6-9 months beginning in June, but would consider 2 or 3 3 month long exchanges, e.g., from June to August, September to December and from December to whenever. We could rent our house for $2600/ month from September through December 2013

It would be most convenient to be in Cambridge, but we would be willing to exchange with anyone with easy access to Cambridge in the Boston area.

I am a retired philosophy professor and my husband is a retired judge. We are both farm kids from southern Illinois who ended up spending our careers in farm country although we've travelled around the world a number of times. We came to Santa Fe about 2 1/2 years ago to help with the first of my other daughter's now two children. We fell in love with Santa Fe and decided to buy a house here. Now our younger daughter is pregnant and we would like to exchange houses in Cambridge, MA to help with the new baby who is due in June. Since we will have ample reason to return to Cambridge, we'd love to exchange with someone who might like to regularly return for a month or so to Santa Fe. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship!

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