We initially approached this project as a mother/daughter team with @sonjaleonard & @eire.lee and were rolling along with the purchase of the property until a few days before closing, when the title company asked for copies of our IDs. Perhaps because ‘Lee’ can be a masculine name, they had assumed we were married. The closing almost came to a screeching halt when they figured out that Lee was, in fact, Sonja’s daughter. Evidently, in New Mexico, there is an antiquated law still on the books that requires a married woman to get the permission of her husband should she want to buy real estate. Of course, the first thing we asked was if it was also required for a married MAN to attain permission from his wife to buy real estate 😆 (the answer we got was, no, it is not)
Grandpa was teaching in Vietnam at the time, so we told the title company to go ahead and figure out how to attain proof of his permission from there…they ended up letting it slide *this time, but assured us that it would absolutely NOT be possible for Grandma to sell the property without Grandpa’s permission. This made Grandpa giggle since Grandma had an illustrious real estate career in Colorado as the broker/owner of one of Denver’s most successful, fully woman-owned real estate firms. Real estate has always been her gig. (To be clear, there is no problem with single women dealing in real estate in New Mexico. It is solely the married ladies who are required to attain permission from their man)
Grandpa ended up falling in love with Taos and threw himself fully into the project. So, happily, it became a family affair…and he has joked around about the powers given to him by the state – he likely will not give that permission if it ever came to it 😉
Grandpa has always loved greenhouses. He was first inspired to design and build a live-in greenhouse tucked into the back corner of the TAOS Distillery property. He would spend the next few years transforming the flat lawn with a sole TUFF shed in it – to the Greenhouse Casita with terraced, acequia fed gardens out front:
VOICES 