Beginning in the years following New Mexican statehood in 1912, and continuing until World War II, this district was the center of a nationally known colony of artists, a remarkable group of multi-talented, creative people, many of whom had national reputations before settling in a remote and little known region of the country. These artists made important contributions not only to their own fields, primarily literature and painting, but also to the community to the extent that they can be considered in large part responsible for the unique milieu of Santa Fe today. Although no longer functioning as a colony, many creative people continue to live in Santa Fe and contribute to its character. The city depends heavily on tourists who are drawn not only by its 150 galleries many of which specialize in Indian and Spanish artists and regional art, and by its yearly markets and traditions like the annual Fiesta, but also by the special environment created by its architecture. The artists who founded Santa Fe's original art colony were drawn to the region by its pre-American cultures and were instrumental in efforts to preserve and revive the fine arts, crafts, customs, and architecture of those cultures. The artists* colony had perhaps its most widely felt impact in the field of architecture. Although the movement to preserve and recreate the city's historic adobe architecture was already under way when the colony began to come together on the Camino del Monte Sol, the artists joined it with vigor, leading efforts to preserve historic architecture and building their own Pueblo Revivaladobe houses. The district also contains some of the first houses designed by John Gaw Meem, the premier professional architect of the Revival styles. It has remained a residential neighborhood, unlike Canyon Road, a street north of the boundary of this district and included in the Santa Fe Historic District, where artists lived which has become predominantly commercial. The artists' homes on the Camino del Monte Sol and adjoining streets are a unique grouping of Pueblo Revival and, to a much lesser extent, Territorial Revival dwellings, built by the group who played a significant role in the conversion of Santa Fe into a city which is dominated by historic styles.
"Artists who were leaders of the art colony and prime contributors to the architectural and cultural character" of the district include:
Alice Corbin Henderson and William Penhallow Henderson, of 555 Camino del Monte Sol and 557 Camino del Monte Sol;
Frank Applegate, of 830 El Caminito, 831 El Caminito, and 408 Camino del Monte Sol;
Fremont Ellis, 586 Camino del Monte Sol;
Walter Mruk, of 542 Camino del Monte Sol;
Joseph Bakos, of 576 Camino del Monte Sol;
Willard Nash, of 566 Camino del Monte Sol;
Will Shuster of 580 Camino del Monte Sol;
Andrew Dasburg, of 520 Camino del Monte Sol and 524 Camino del Monte Sol;
Philip Stevenson, of 408 Delgado Street; Stevenson bought the home in 1930 and lived there until about 1939. He was a novelist and screenwriter sympathetic to Communism, who, along with his wife Janet Stevenson was blacklisted. The home was in a Garcia family from 1848 to 1920. The eastern half of the property was owned and remodeled by John Gaw Meem in 1954, for Marian Gebhardt. Gebhardt "made it her home and established the well-known Children's Patio Day School in an L-shaped addition created along the Acequia Madre and Delgado Street by connecting an adobe outbuilding to the house. The pegs where the children hung their coats are still to be seen." and
