-2-

October 31, 1933

P.S. The new sketches have just come. They look swell! I like the facade enormously, now that you have made it two levels. It does improve the south facade to have the bath extend a little and to drop the roof. The only thing that might be of concern would be this: the bath might beginoshutting off the western sun too early. Perhaps the way the house is tilted on the lot will take care of this. Or perhaps you only meant it to extend two feet - or between two and three. I don't suppose there is any hurry about deciding the exact distance it projects. You're an angel to rush them through like this. I appreciate it very much. I'm putting them on my walls to look at.

4 November 33

Lear Lynn

The game has advanced several stages since my telegram. I think
that the farmer has not only taken a wife but that the wife has taken a child
by this time.

I'll begin at the counting out. I had your letter one Saturday at
12:00. I telephoned Dorman, made the offer and asked him to let me know at
once so that I could telegraph you. He said wait a minute, etc., and then that
he had to speak to Florence. In 30 minutes he was out here saying that Florence
had said yes. He said he had told her the lots were worth 1000 a piece if any-
thing happened to him, and said I am not going to have any more of this
I-told-you-not-to-sell stuff. After accepting the 750.00 he said that Florence
was concerned about the back doors, and he also said he hoped we would not tell any
one we got it for that mere song.

He had an agreement in his pocket and I made it out improving upon
it slightly in our favor and signed it as A W agent for L R. Then I gave him
the check saying that if he had not taken 75 0/00 I was ready to slap it on
something else as you wanted to buy something. I told him to send the abstract
to Mr Seth who is my attorney and the best in the state. (Seth read the abstract and
he has sent me the attached opinion) Then in an hour's time from the receipt of
your letter, I telegraphed that the lot was yours.

On Monday morning I telephoned the manager of the power company and
met him on the lot and told him where I wanted a water metre put. It was put
in on Tuesday morning. Then I sent a Mexican over to dig a 20 foot ditch and I
sent Mr Frazer the plumber over to lay a line and erect a stand pipe and
hydrant. Then I telephoned Wood Davis to send 100 ft of hose over and I ordered
a bale of straw from Gormleys. On Friday I put the Straw and bales my teamster to work
plowing up a long strip on the west border which was slightly high on account
of their being a ditch there with embankment, and with this loose dirt I set
three men to work yesterday and now we have 744 adobes made.

I find that we can make five or six thousand adobes if we want that
number from the west strip and that we do not have to excavate under the house
and make you have bad dreams about entrapped animals. By plowing a strip the
entire length of the lot and shouting and hollering at the men to use only
about 6 inches in depth of the earth, we do no harm to the land and we save by
having the adobes made there.

I should have about a hundred dollars at this time.

The weather is changing and we may not be able to make all the adobes
this autumn. That wretched Dorman held us up during all of the good weather.
Tonight the wind is blowing and it is straight from the north. The wind blew
too hard today to hold a tapeline on the lot but I will make a diagram as soon
as I can work there. Now that I was able to make the adobes from a high ridge
the question of the house's location is not of moment, but I will spot your trees
anyway.

As to the, I thought the bath should extend about 2 feet, and
that the kitchen could be pushed back that far too, so that we could use the
same measurements. The house would be a sort of T instead of an L. A long
narrow table could be pushed into the recess made on the portal, or something.

I have just finished plastering Hal Bynner's entire house, garage,
laundry, storerooms, sheds, etc., etc. We found a lovely red earth beyond what
the men call the dompje, and we used it with sand and one part brown dirt. I
HOPE it will stay on but it is lovely.

Then last Saturday afternoon I went to man's place farther up
Canon Road where he had 10 acres he wanted to sell me. His little houses were
all white and I asked him why he had whitewashed them all outside. He showed
me his white clay pit. Too beautiful, a rich velvety cream. I sent wagons up
the following Monday and now I am plastering my Canon Road house all over with
this lovely cream earth and if you like it we will do the Poniente house that way.

As to Seth's letter: I have not had a chance to see him but I think that
we should request a suit to quiet title by Dorman. Do you remember the day we took
him to the lot when he volunteered bringing suit and grading driveways with the
money he was to receive from a sale? I think we should waive roadwork, as it will
be better for us to be just one lot and not surrounded with silly driveways.

This brings us up to Saturday might. And so.

AW

PS I forgot that I had given the order for vigas, long and short, to my friend

Elisego Armijo, and he will cut them this month and peel them and stack them for
E. Spring. And that over over

November 28, 1933

Dear Ann:

The New Mexico Power Company has sent me a bill addressed vaguely to Camino Pointe. I hope they mean me. Here is a check for it. If it's all right, will you drop it in the post office for me?

I've been thinking about the projection of the bathroom, and I think it would be better if we could get a new one. Do you think the long portal - the idea of which I like very much - would be bad? You see, the plans for the extra room to be added next to the bathroom would be all thrown out of gear by a projection of the bathroom.

Why couldn't we do this: Drop the bathroom level, as you have indicated, push the bathroom back into line with the living room, and let the vigas of the bathroom extend out to make a portal on a lower level than the other one, but continuous with it.

I have plans for a small, completely enclosed patio to go with the east bedroom. Here is a badly drawn plan of it. If I do this, will the peach trees fall inside the small patio or not?

I give you carte blanche to plant a few trees if you feel like doing it. Could I have a willow and a tamarisk and some lilac bushes? And what about the Chinese elm you spoke of?

I suppose it's cold as blazes there. We've been sweltering in mid-summer heat until today.

How did your new studio turn out?

What are the exact dimensions of my lot?

Is anything holding up the transfer of the deed? I'm getting anxious to spend that money.

Let me know if you need any money at this time.

Best regards.

As ever,

ANN WEBSTER
SANTA FE

7 December 33

Dear Lynn:

The power co bill is ok, I mailed it. The council gave them the right to make a charge of ten dollars for setting a new metre.

I telephoned Dorman's office about the deed and Mr Dorman reported that he had instructed Mr Seth to proceed to quiet title. I will send you the published notices in the papers when they appear. This is all specified by law and the period of time depends upon so many days between each notice and that sort of thing. Usually several months.

Mrs Dorman sent me a tracing of the corner lot taken from their one and only map. It was tiny and I made this enlargement. I stepped off the trees and they are approximately as I have indicated. You can place your house around in different spots until you know where you want it. The cardboard house is about drawn to scale.

I'll study the proportions of the lot and see where I think trees would be sweet in January.

You can have a flat facade if you want it. I proposed running the bath and kitchen vigas crosswise in the drawings I sent you, as vigas are usually run the short way of the room. But we can run the kitchen one way and the bath with the livingroom vigas. I have not noticed any old houses with two-tier portal vigas, but I think it would look all right.

In order to get a placita east of the new bedroom we would have to push the house a further west than we

2

had heretofore proposed. With the map I am inclosing
you can place your house and make provision for any
additions you want. The placita gate could be directly
out on the Poniente and the wall a part of the fence
we would take down.

It's not cold here. I stopped making adobes after the
first few days because there was a little storm. But I could
have made thousands of adobes. There has never been such a
winter here. Of course one does not know what is going to
happen 24 or 48 hours hence and it takes about 5 days to make
an adobe and place it in the stack, and I don't like to gamble
with other people's money to that extent.

I finished the seventh studio and rented it to
Irene Emory on November 1. She is cutting stone.

Then I finished the inside of a studio for Martha
Field which Irving Parsons had started and had to leave because
he was ill. Outside work is over here unfortunately.

I'll send you a statement of expenditures to date.

Yrs

AW

The lot is really awfully nice and it is stunning as it lies in
the sun this winter.

ANN WEBSTER
SANTA FE

27 I 34

Dear Lynn:

Here is the way we stand to date:

We have put the water on the lot and we
started to make adobes but stopped when a snow came.
We have 700 or so. Then we ordered all the lumber
and had it sent to the millowner's yard to store
it as it would not have been safe on an empty lot.
The lumber cost 79.10 and 10.90. This lumber is
for floor joists, sub-floor, ceiling, door and
window frames, etc. The smaller amount of lumber
was delivered to my house in Canon Road and my
carpenter came here and worked, making all the door
and window frames, vent boxes, etc., and painting them
priming coats so that they would not warp. They are
stacked up in the corner of my garden and are almost
as large as a sizable house themselves.

You sent 100.00 in November and to date
we have spent, material and wages (and a hose for
9.00) on 155.90. I am inclosing a list.

I think if you send me another hundred
it will be sufficient for the next preliminary
steps.

I did some studios for the Fields and
worked Hal's fireplaces over with a sledge hammer
and pickaxe, restored the roof where K Gay had

2

tried to burn up a studio in Garcia Street, cut a
door through the stone wall in my own studio, and
now I am tired and shall depart for a week or two
to keep out of jobs.

The winter has been so mild that the
ground is not frozen except in north strips,
and for this reason I am not planting trees until February.
My own theory is that the dry soft earth will blow
away and expose the roots if the plants are left alone,
and I will plant things as near the time when we shall
be there daily to watch and soak them in water.

I hope you are planning to come out and
anchor the house before we turn sod. ("Sod" being a
euphemism for adobe.)

Always,

Ann.

THE MONTECITO
APARTMENTS

6650 FRANKLIN AVENUE
HOLLYWOOD
GLadstone 5124

February 1, 1934

Dear Ann:

Thanks for the accounting - but more thanks
for the exciting news about all that activity.
I'm returning your accounting - just so you'll
have a copy yourself.

I've just taken a house for two months at
this new address. This is supposed to get
me in training for having a house of my
own.

Here is a check for $145.90 (the $45.90 I
owe you, plus another $100.00).

Whatever you do about the trees is certainly
all right with me.

I hope those window frames, etc., aren't
going to be a nuisance stacked in your
own place that way.

I've just figured out that if I should
happen to have to stay a little longer
than I expected, I could dash over for a
few days when April begins to appear on
the horizon. At that time, we could
anchor the house, decide about nearly
everything, and I could come back and leave
it all to you. I'll let you know if I have
to do this.

It's very pleasant out here at the moment -
and this particular week I'm not hating
the goddam pictures so cordially.

My best to you.

As Always,

800 N. Crescent Hts. Blvd.

H

February 27, 1934

Dear Ann:

I'd better not start till April in any case: I have to raise some more money still, and I don't understand why there is so much delay about my actually owning the land.

Mr. Seth's letter to me, which you sent me some time ago, didn't seem to need an answer - so I didn't reply to it. But Dorman, as you remember, promised to quiet title on the property. Has he done it? Or has he conveniently forgotten that this was part of his job, not mine? Please - in an idle moment, if you ever have one - find out just what the status is.

I don't expect to be delayed - certainly not much - in starting the house. But please don't go any further at the moment, until the land question is settled, and I find out where I'm going to make a few extra hundreds.

The weather has been mild here also - it would be libel, I imagine, to say otherwise.

Best luck. And if there's any information I'd be very pleased to have it. I'm sorry you've had to do so much of the things I should, no doubt, have done myself.

As ever,

800 N. Crescent H eights Blvd.

ANN WEBSTER
SANTA FE

2 March 34

Dear Lynn:

Here is the first notice of Harry Dorman's
suit to quiet title. I pursued him several times but
Seth was too busy to file the bill until this week.
There was never any danger. From the last line in
the publication you will nate that the advertising
must appear 4 times, the last being 22 March. Then
there is a period of 30 days I think and then the
decree.

I note what you say about raising more
money. You dont need it all at once. If you let me
have a hundred a week for a few weeks I can buy the cement,
sand, etc., and put a few men on the foundation forms,
which can then be settling until you want to go on.
We can do the adobe work the same way. Work a few weeks
laying the adobes and lay off until you are ready to
go on. You can spread the job along as it is conven-
ient to pay.

As ever,

AW

March 9, 1934

Dear Ann:

Thanks for the newspaper notice. I was a little worried about it. I imagine I may as well say now that, if you want to do it, it's all right with me to start on the foundation. The only catch, of course, is I wish I could be there to set the stakes, so that I won't have any kick.

This much I'm sure of: because of the protected bedroom to go on the east side, and the private patio I intend to go with it, the south-east corner of the living room must be 32 or 33 feet from Camino El Poniente. This will allow me room for the hall and the bedroom and about 15 feet of width in the patio at that thinnest point. On the other side of the house, where possible another bedroom may be added eventually, I will have still left about 25 feet.

Furthermore, I don't see much necessity for having the house set back more than 20 or 25 feet from the Acequia Madre. If the plan of the lot which you sent me is fairly accurate, the tilt of the house on the land would probably make it exactly parallel to the line of my property on the Acequia Madre.

Please let me know at once if this future necessity is going to give me an outlook outlook from my living room at present. I know positively that eventually I'll live most of my time in the proposed bedroom and private patio, so I've been thinking mostly of that time, and not now.

Yes, I can easily advance a hundred a week for several weeks. In fact, here's two hundred to start things off.

I gather from this clipping that I don't actually

-2-

have title to the land until about April 30th.
If you find you'd like to wait until then to start,
I'm pretty sure of being in Santa Fe very early
in May - if not before.

I've just signed a contract with Paramount to do
a picture for them, so the money problem is pretty
well taken care of. The book they asked me to
do - it may interest you to know - is Andrews'
Harvest by John Evans, and a very good book it is
too. At the moment it's scheduled for Gary Cooper
and Sylvia Sidney.

Many thanks for everything. And let me know what
you decide.

Best regards.

As ever,

800 N. Crescent Heights Blvd.,
Hollywood, Calif.

P.S. I have worked a scheme whereby the hall,
which was to isolate the bedroom from the living
room, can, by enlarging it a foot or so each way,
become a library. Here is the plan. The only
part of it that will concern you at all soon is
the fact that I want two little window lintels in
the library wall, as well as the large lintel in
what is to be the bedroom wall. I imagine, for
the present you won't want that wall standing out
in space for 20 feet, as indicated here. But please
note the approximate position the window will have
to be in.

March 14. 1934

Dear Ann:

Thanks for the telegram. I had imagined the
slant of the Acequia Madre was closer to the
tilt at which we wanted to put the house. If
you think the front of the house is too close
to the Acequia Madre, push it back a few feet,
if you like. I just thought most of the land
in front of the house would be waste - since
I'll live mostly in the back. Whatever you
want to do suits me about that.

Ida Eastman has just come and is very interested
in the Dorman lots. She asks me to tell you
this: if you see Dorman, by any chance, please
tell him that Ida says if he can sell her other
lot on the Caminito, she will sign a contract
to buy one of his lots - the one adjoining
my own on the Acequia Madre, if it's approximately
the same size.

She - if any deal could be made - wants you,
if you will, to build her a house also - more
or less the size of my own, with further additions
as she feels the need of them.

Let me know when you think it safe (on account
of the fact that I don't actually own the land
yet) to start the foundation. Also, I think
I ought to send you approximately my idea about
where I'll want light fixtures, gas outlets, etc.

Incidentally, before I forget it, I positively
want at least one of the little panes of the
big window to open. I hope you haven't ordered
it yet, or can change the order if you have.

Whatever you feel like doing about trees and lilac
bushes is all right with me - just so it isn't
too fwi dorthfully expensive.

Ida's lot on the Caminito she was holding for $800.

I can't think of anything else at the moment -
except greetings and good luck.

As ever,

March 13, 1934

# Notes On The House.

## Electric Outlets.

1. In the living room I want electric outlets as follows:

One baseboard plug in each end of the room.

Two baseboard plugs in each long side of the room.

Two outlets in the ceiling.

I'm not going to spend my life falling over long cords on the floor.

2. In the bath room I want:

One electric outlet in the ceiling.

One over the wash basin, above the mirror which will go there.

One wall plug, somewhere near the basin (Not to heat my curling iron, as you may suspect, but to plug in an electric razor).

3. In the kitchen - wherever you think best for electric outlets.

4. On the portal:

An outlet near the French door.

An outlet - low in the wall - farther along the portal toward the east.

5. An outlet outside, by the front door.

March 19, 1934

Dear Ann:

The very graphic description sounds too good to be true.
Of course, I'll like it.

Here are the floor plans, etc., of kitchen and bathroom.

The kitchen seems very good to me, and Ida agrees. She asked, however, if it would be possible to have, where the refrigerator is, a table the same height as the sink, or a built in cabinet with a top which fitted the edge of the sink to serve for stacking the things to be washed. In this case, room for the refrigerator would have to be taken out of the wall space where you have indicated built in presses. The space above the refrigerator could still be used for closed in closet space. I think this is probably a good idea, don't you? If necessary to find more closet space, I could have something built low to go under the east window, not extending very far into the room.

I should like to make these changes (in the bath):

1. By carefully measuring several closets, I find I don't actually need more than 2½ feet depth inside the closet. Use the extra space - almost 6 inches - to make the bathroom a little roomier.

2. Just put in the lintel for the door to the future bedroom - and don't give me a window there at all. The one over the tub will be sufficient - and I'll feel less like a goldfish.

You probably have the notes now about electric outlets. But I've indicated them in the bathroom approximately.

Perhaps the windows in the south wall could be a trifle nearer to ether. Yes, I'd like the lavatory in the center, exactly between them. The height of the windows from the floor I leave to you. Likewise, the window over the bathtub.

Please allow me an adobe wall between kitchen and bathroom, even if you have to push the front kitchen wall out a little.

-2-

Please thank Mrs. Goodwin for the lilac bushes.

If you have to think about gas pipes right now -
will I need more than one gas radiator in the living
room? Where do you think would be the best place
for it?

If I get there by the 5th of May, it begins to look
as if I'd have a house to move into.

Best regards.

As ever,

P.S. Before I forget it, whatever merits or demerits
the lavatory has, I want one which has the hot water
and cold water both coming out of a common spigot.

Also, where am I going to get hot water for the
bathroom? If I have one of those heaters in the
kitchen, will that give me plenty of hot water for the bath.
800 N. Crescent Heights Blvd.,
Hollywood, Calif.

P.P.S. Also, while I think of it - I'd rather not have the
inside walls of the various rooms leaning in. I know -
in the cases you have let the workmen do this - what the
idea has been, and it certainly does wonders for the
outside of the house. But I'd a little rather not have
it - because I'm very conscious of it from inside, and
afraid I won't like it to live with.

Ann Webster
Santa Fe

20 March 34

Dear Lynn

I have your check for 200.00 more. Now we have 500.00 almost untouched. If you don't mind I shall wait until the end of the month when the bills come in before rendering an account. So little has been spent there is nothing to record today.

I also have your electric and plumbing locations.
Also carefully noted.

figures.

We have a discrepancy in our bathroom fixtures. My plans call for a 10x10 bath and your last estimate makes it 11 ft long, north and south. I have a 2 ft door frame to enter the proposed west bedroom, which is large enough and also economical of space, so I think the bath and the 3 ft closet will still fit in. The bathtub could be set into the closet a few inches, as well as having the fixtures in.

The livingroom bookcase on the west is easy.

I have 2 men on the job only, so that we are not speeding up.
I am doing this so that in the course of slow correspondence
the work will not get ahead of instructions.

To day we have the foundation almost in, and we have started
to lay adobes in the bathroom somas to provide a closed storeroom
for materials. I never like to build a storeroom and then tear it
down and scrap it when the work is over. It seems unnecessary waste
when a room will answer the purpose and be permanent.

I spoke to Dorman about the I.E.land matter. He pointed out
that she did not have sewer, gas, water or anything, especially quiet
title on hers. I asked him what he would trade even for, as there is not
much chance for sales today. He said he would CONSIDER trading even
for the front lot lying next to you, to the west, about 115x125.
There is a question about Dorman's right to the entrance on the south
end of the Poniente, and he cannot sell any more until that is adjusted
with Pem Parsons. However it does not concern your land. You are
surrounded on 2 sides by entrances.

I have taken a lot of persons to the lot and they all like
the placing. I hope you will. But gosh how I wish you could fly over
for a day. I HOPE I am doing things the way you want them done.

Yrs
Ann

March 23, 1934

Dear Ann:

Our last letters evidently crossed. I have
your letter dated March 20. My letter of
March 19 asked that the depth inside the
closet in the bathroom ~~needed~~ to be only
2½ feet.

About the discrepancy in bathroom figures -
I notice that you made the kitchen 10 x 10,
stealing an extra foot from the bath. It
doesn't really make any difference anyway.
And the extra 6 inches taken off the closet
will make the bathroom plenty roomy enough.

Please let me know you got the letter of
March 19 - since there are some more things
in it I won't bother repeating unless necessary.

If my friend George O'Neil, the poet, play-
wright, novelist, etc., turns up there on
the lot, don't be surprised. He's motoring
east. Jo Pelkey is driving him.

There's no hurry about the accounting. I
just wanted to be sure there was plenty
of money ahead, so that you wouldn't run
short.

If somebody comes around with a camera,
please steal four or five snapshots of the
work in progress.

If someone in the Dorman office would be
so kind, Ida would like to have a drawing
on an ordinary sheet of typewriter paper
of Dorman's tract, showing the approximate
scale and dimensions of that lot in relation
to my own. It sounds rather small to me.

You will have had my letter of a day or so
ago also by this time, asking about the walled-
in enclosure.

23 March 34

Dear Lynn

When I saw the airmail I thought great scott here's where we rip out all the cement and blast down the adobes. Relief.

I have carefully spotted all your suggestions.

I got Raymie Otis to make these pictures. He also promises us some iris and hardy chrysanthemums. You will remember that I said I ran up the walls of the bathroom and that we use it for a storeroom. That's that little cubicle in the pictures. The walls otherwise are as high as the board forms. But these pictures were made Wednesday and three little busy bees have been at them ever since so that we are much farther advanced today.

First: These are the south side of the bathroom. In the distance you can see the faint snowline of the S de C mts. It is the view you will see through the big window. The vigas lie in foreground. Instead of setting a lintel in the bath for the new door later, I set up the lintel such that and the door frame (just 4 2x8 boards which Bernardino made last winter.) This will save much labor as well as great shock to the walls when the new door is out through. In the meanwhile the opening is filled with adobes and on the outside it is a smooth wall. If you like we can put the little window in the top, but with three windows in the bath there is ample light without. I am sorry if you think the windows are too far apart. Dont you like a great mirror over the lavatory? If we set a sheet of glass 3 ft wide and high in the wall it makes the room seem larger as well as serves its purpose.

Second: The same.

Third: You can barely see the Jemez mts in this, but it is the view from the portal looking west. The black object on the left is the wall of Woolford's place. And the brush of the acequia dropping to the right. The camera did not get everything.

4.

Then we crossed the brigde to the upper side and looked southwest for this it shows something of the angle of the house in relation to the roads. The triple posts in front mark your n.e.corner. You see the bed of the acequia on the right. The black wall of the house faces the acequia broadside.

5. Raymie climbed on the roof for this. It is meant to show the angle of the mecthedral studio and the Poniente.

The foundation running out forms the n.e.corner of the house. The forms look slim but there 18 inches wide, of cement packed with the rock you see in piles.

March 27, 1934.

Dear Ann:

If there were a Pulitzer prize for thoughtfulness, you'd get it! You can imagine my extreme pleasure at the illustrated letter. It came while I was having lunch on the terrace - and I was supposed to be eating magnificent fish caught by my Filipino especially for me, and cooked by him like nobody's business - Guess what happened to the fish.

I can't believe you can see all that from the house - but the evidence of Verichrome is irrefutable. Please accept grateful applause - and thank Ray profusely, too.

As to the questions asked - or raised - by the letter:

1. Never mind the little window in the top of the filled-in door of the bath.

2. The south bath windows are OK. It distributes the light better anyway having them farther apart. I want to set a pretty fair-sized wall cabinet, with mirror door, into the wall there.

3. You're putting the kitchen door where it was in the colored sketches you sent me, and which I've looked at on my wall all winter. I don't see why it isn't as good there as elsewhere.

4. Please don't make the studio room too awfully high. Unless it makes the room too squatty for its rather large dimensions, I should think 9 feet - or slightly more - from floor to ceiling would be ample. Let me know, I don't want an inch more than you feel we need.

5. Do whatever you like about the bathroom set. I'd like to make some good-will at Sanbusco, but $40. seems like a rather high price to pay for it. I'll get other things later - quite a few perhaps - so I'd lean to the M. Ward idea, if they're really all right, and as handsome as possible for the price. But I leave it to you - and no complaint. Please make the toilet seat, a male one. Lavatory - rectangular 3/8 x 1 1/2 felt?

6. Don't give me a swinging door from kitchen to studio. I like a door that locks. I'm a nervous author.

7. I think this was understood - but just in case it wasn't - I'd like to have the _vigas_ visible in all rooms.

-2-

George Gormly has xnxkxnt worked out for me the arrangements
of drawers, shelves, etc. for the bathroom cloξ et. Just
leave that end of the bath till my arrival - unless it would
serve any purpose to line the adobe wall against the kitchen
with wood. Or do I want that? I imagine not, now that I
think of it.

I'm working like a dog. Now I must go back to it.

Greetings - and again thanks,

800 N. Crescent Heights Blvd.
Hollywood.

31 March 34

Lynn

ANN WEBSTER
SANTA FE

Well we had a great time today. All along I have had a
kind of feeling that it wasnt right to sponsor such a nice house
in such an unknown, unwept and unsung manner, but today we fixed
it.

Yesterday being good friday of semana aanta, we did not work,
we prayed. But the godless they went to Ojo Caliente and Abiquiu
and nice places like that and ate luncheon on the road and other
wise disported themselveſ. At the old church ruins before Abiquiu
the inspiration came: There were mountains of beautiful old
red adobes, recently thrown down, and some in perfect condition.
So it seemed that here was a nice red adobe to carry bach to
Santa Fe for a cornerstone. Just the thing. The owners of the
motor were too polite to really raise a row and a huge adobe
reposed on the back plush carpet the rest of the journey. Our
adobes are 10 by 14, but this one is 10 by 20.

Then it seemed only proper that interesting things should
accompany the red adobe in its permanent place in the wall and that
interesting persons should place them there, so we found a
metal box and we got together some of your friends and we all
met at the house at ten this morning, with the workers in it too
of course.

The official document was printed on vellum bound in a
pink jacket, and here is a copy of it. That went into the box
first after being read alond to everybody. (The workers were
pleased to have their names go in the house) Then Martha Field
produced her cumming little mask of Yeats which was in red clay
and had been fired. Then along came Raymie Otis with the last
page of his penitente novel, signed and labeled, and that went
in. Frances brought a watercolor sketch, of a Santa Fe scene,
and Luella Prescott (Mrs Goodwin's sister brought a clay lamb
she had modeled, with a verse, but only one copy was brought
and I shall yave to get another for you. Then Alice Long said
salt was the first house-hold god and she brought a teeny
bottle and also a teeny indian pot. Then Haniel put in his

new sonnet to Duse, but he gave me this copy for you. We had
to put in the good friday issue of Dana's New Mexican, which
established the date as of no older. And I had a tile of some
local clay with which I have been experimenting, and it was
fired, and that went in.

Then we all said it was a good house and we stood at
attention inside the corner where the cornerstone was and the
workers stood outside in front of us, and we were photographed.

So now I think everything will go along much better
and that it will be a good house.

Ann.

3

For Eleanor Duse, Ten Years later.

The Circling Flower died whose perfumes heal,
And Duse saw it die. The here and now
Stamped the dark doom of Mothers on her brow,
Made of her face the death the Mothers feel.

The Circling Flower died, and Duse saw:
And what was lacking to her soul till them
(What is still lacking in the souls of men)
Awoke her to life's fundamental law.

The horrible rift within our flesh, she faced it;
Imagine this time that passions disunite,
Imagine these mothers - played the ruined part.

She was the web which caught the dark and light
In life today. The circle of our heart
And thinking was not closed, but Duse closed it.

Dear Lynn:

Here's to the future of your House---
And may I place these lines in the building of it !

Haniel.

Santa Fe

March 31, 34.

ANN WEBSTER
SANTA FE

3 April 34

lynn

I have a plumber who buys things at plumbers' rates and then gives the rate to me. As I told you the Bldrs Supply quoted 164.00 on three pieces for the bath. My plumber went and returned with this: 111.00 for the three pieces plus the kitchen sink. He gives us his cut.

So it is ordered at the bldrs supply.

Now about the tub: This price includes a corner tub. Would you like a recess tub, which is a tub with three walls surrounding instead of two. The advantage will be that it makes a better shower combination, having three enameled walls and that the third towel rack could be attached to the foot wall.

There is sufficient space at the foot of the tub, next to the door to the pro-bedroom, to build a wall, and the inclosure between that wall and the clothes press would hold the recess tub. Then a straight rod across the top would hold the shower curtain. The cost of a recess is about 5.00 lower than a corner tub.

Next: Ask G.G whether or not he wants the walls in his 2¼ x 10 foot closet space plastered and finished like the rest of the bathroom, or whether I shall leave them rough adobe bricks. Will his press be lined? And will he have a floor to his press, or shall I run the linoleum under it? Linoleum costs money and I dont want to buy that amount if he s going to cover it up with lumber.

I have your telegram. I dont think the variations in your figures and my facts are great. And I know certain things can be adjusted with little effort after you come.

Ann

A. R.
SA.

4 April 34

lynn:

Here we are, lrft to right,
as we say in the Sunday

supplements:

Ann Webster, Martha Field, Daniel Long, Alice Goodwin, Raymie Otis, Luella Prescott, Frances Otis, Alice Long, and Willy Field, and in front Benito Garcia, Bernardino Garcia, foreman, and Todocio Padilla.

It is the northeast corner of the house. Note big studio
window frame in position. and little double window on east.
The Abiquiu adobe is in front of Alice Goodwin and the white
sliver on top of it is the tin box.

April 4, 1934

Dear Ann:

I hope the telegram didn't throw a wrench into anything. I didn't mean it to, at any rate. It just occurred to me that you yourself suggested once so aptly the height the east window should be - "the height of a book above a work table" - that I thought I'd remind you of it in case you had made them higher than that. Also, I don't like the closed in feeling a large high north window might have given me. I don't mind seeing the road and the house across the street. I can always shut them out if I don't want them. However, as I specified in my telegram, if things were too far set before my word arrived - I don't care a great deal.

Everything else sounds swell.

What do you mean calling my bed a cot?

I'll leave the decision about making a wall around the proposed bedroom until I arrive. I'm pretty sure I'll want to do it, however - unless I decide to put in the large walled in enclosure instead.

I don't know what made you think I had any intention of not following the Poniente line when I made the large placita. I only meant to make the bedroom itself at right angles to the rest of the house, and let the placita follow the Poniente line. I have it drawn that way on my map. Perhaps we didn't talk about it at all.

The reorganized kitchen sounds fine. I can't believe you sat on a little burro to do it (burrito), so I imagine burrito must be a sawhorse.

What kind of radiator do you find best? Somebody out here admonishes me that the gas-steam radiators are best, because they don't dry the air so much. You probably know all about this, however. Anyway, whatever kind is used has to have an outside vent, doesn't it?

Thanks for the drawing of Dorman's tract. Let me know what Pem Parsons decides.

You will have had my letter of March 27th, which answers the question about the extra little window in the bath.

-2-

I imagine, by this time, you have had your March
bills and can begin to have some rough idea of what
the house is going to cost. I'm sending $200.00
in case you're running low. Let me know if you want
more right away. It's just sitting here in the bank
anyway - the whole sum now, thanks to God and Paramount.

I go to Northwestern about June 23rd, for five weeks,
to try out a new play of mine. If I find, by that time,
I have money enough, and still want it, perhaps the
east bedroom could be added during my absence.

I still don't know how much longer I'll be here. I'm
trying to make my closing at Paramount coincide with
the end of my rent on the house I'm living in - which
is May 5th. If I'm successful in doing this, I'll
be there about May 7th. If I corral a bed soon after
I arrive, do you see any reason why I can't move into
the house the day after I arrive?

I don't believe we ever talked about plastering
inside the house. I remember you have found it best
to do this - and I'll certainly take your word for it.
I'd like the color to be not dead white, and not gray -
but a kind of cream, but not noticeably yellow. The
fact is, I don't want to notice the color of the walls
at all. I just want to get rid of the dead shade
they might easily have. Let me know if this sounds
satisfactory to you. I have bowed to many of your
good opinions. I'd be delighted to bow some more.

If you get this far ahead before I arrive - I know
exactly the yellow color I want under the portal.
The portal of that house Kate Chapman built in that
apple orchard (it's on the little street cutting
through from the Acequia to Delgado) has exactly
the yellow I want.

I don't know exactly what to say about the color of
the outside of the house. I'm inclined to follow
your suggestion about the white clay pit. I certainly
don't want the terribly dark brown mud so many of the
houses there are covered with. I'll tell you what:
please ask Gina and Jane Baumann to have a look
at your house, and then you three decide about it.

Now I have to go to work and try to earn an adobe.

I wish to God the peach trees would wait till May
to bloom!

Let me reiterate: please don't take any of my suggestions
as distressing and unhappy problems. I have lived so
long in houses I don't like that I know I'll find the
whole house entirely pleasant.

Regards,

April 5, 1934

Dear Ann:

I can't begin to tell you how pleased I was about
the dedication. My grateful thanks to you, to the
workmen, and to the others. Please convey to them
all my gratitude. It was a very handsome thing to
do.

Your letter, dated April 3rd, has just come. That's
marvelous about the bath. I much prefer a corner
tub. The recessed tub, necessitating that extra
wall, I'd prefer not to have. I like the open
feeling of a corner tub. The shower curtain can
curve round from the wall. I don't mind not having
the extra towel rack I once asked about.

Yes, go ahead and plaster and finish the clothes
press space, including linoleum, as the rest of
the bath is finished.

I've finished with Paramount. What they call the
Capital Treatment is done. But because of expense,
and other things, they've decided not to go ahead
with the production right away. I shall probably
do another job for another studio before I start
Santa Fe award.

You will have had my letter of April 4th by this
time. I tried to think of things that might
come up, either now or soon in the future. But,
as you know, I can always be reached by letter
or telegram for quick decision.

I can't wait to see the pictures of the dedication
party.

Regards.

As ever,

April 7, 1934

Dear Ann:

I'm having some things sent from Barker
Bros. for my house. By sending them
direct to you, I save the California
sales tax. I hope you won't mind
receiving them. It was simpler to have
them go Express Collect, so if you'll
be so kind as to find a place for them,
I'll be very grateful. The express
charges won't be more than two or three
dollars, I'm sure.

The package contains, principally, things
I could get very good values on out here:
sheets, blankets, table linen, etc. If
you'd like to inspect them, please do -
and let me know if everything is there.
Here's a list - and there'll be one in
the package.

George Gormly is not having the closet
made. He just worked out the space for
me. I'll want one of your workmen to
do it for me after I come.

Best luck.

As ever,

8 April 34

Lynn

Yours of the 27th and 4th are here.

Your comments on the kodak pictures are so outofdate by this time that
it seems dumb to have even taken such beginnings. Today we have a roof on
the entire shootingmatch. Our vigas stick out like the fretful porcupine.
The plumber has torn up the face of creation. The cement mesa for the fireplace
is erected. Four trees are planted and three lilac bushes. Raymie will make
another picture soon.

I am waiting to hear from you as to corner or recess tub. Then the order
goes in. In one of my letters I told you of the new Bldrs Supply bid on
the plumbing. When I looked into it it included fittings and things that
were not up to specification] and no provision for the shower, etc. Their
next bid jumped to 154.93 ( I inclose it). Then my plumber produced a
Sanitary Mfg Co salesman who made a 139.69 bid on all the equipment we want
plus the sink. I also inclose this bid, but please return it. Toilet seat ordered
as you specified.

The studio ceiling will be 8 ft 10 inches from the floor to the vigas.
It is a little more than a foot higher than bath and kitchen.

As to Sanbusco, I am getting everything I need there, cement, nails,
roofing, etc., etc. You are making goodwill.

No swinging doors contemplated.

All vigas exposed in all rooms and outside.

Answer about G G's wardrobe, so I shall know how to treat the space, walls
and floor.

Letter No. 2;

I KNOW I proposed a window a table and a book high, but when I built it
the Poniente was too close to the house to suit me. If I had known that you
LIKE to see roads and people passing, I would have known what to do, but I
did not know it when I built. However, it is easy to dig out and reset the
window if you dont like it. That is, it can be done.

I dont think you will find the studio window too high. It is about 34
inches, finished, I think. There will be an open pane.

I assume that you are not going to have a bed and a bedstead and that
sort of thing in this nice studio I am building, and that what you sleep upon
WILL BE a couch or cot or studiobed arrangement. That is why I dropped into
cot discussion.

When you add walls to walls in masonry you have to tie these walls
together. This is done by setting alternate bricks in a dovetail arrangement
into the walls. It is infinitely easier to leave such dovetails sticking
out as you build, for the new wall. Realizing how inexpensively we are
building, I felt sure you would want to add at least a walled space on the
east, and so I have left irregular rows of adobes protruding, to attach the
new walls to. I think you can see them on the cornerstonelaying picture.
It will be very easy to go on from here, if you decide to.

The workers call sawhorses burros. And low ones burritos. I have used
the term so frequently I forget all are not initiated.

I have put gas steam radiators in 12 or 14 houses, and in all of my own,
with complete satisfaction. But there is a floor furnace which is made by the
same Pacific Company. Irving Parsons put it in the little house near yours,
and they say it is doing very well. The advantage is that it is hidden instead
of standing in the way like a radiator, mm4 The cost is about the same.
I inclose a folder about it, and as it is made in Huntington Park, Calif.,
you might go and look at it. The radiators I use are made there too. I intend
to use a gas furnace the next house I build for myself, whether you do or not.

Pem Parsons has been couriering furiously this spring, to the Navajo
country, to every pueblo and ruin, I have not seen her since my last report
to you and her telephone has not answered for days. But I'll keep at it.

II.

8 April 34

I sent you a March statement showing a balance of 233.30, I believe.

I think that we will need the following, at a rough estimate:

Our balance is now 433.30.

Plumbing & labor 275.00
Floors 40.00
Doors 25.
Windows 25.
Roof 50.
Electric wiring 65.
Range and kitch. presses, etc 100.
Radiator 40.
Paints & kalmg 20.
Stone for portal 15.
Labor 250.
---
905.00

Of this we have 433.30
---
472.00

My estimates are usually higher than things actually cost.

I will send you color cards showing samples of paint and kalsomine from which you can make selections. The color in Ballentine Ballentine Plaza is faded and softened by adobe dust. New color would become like it in time, but would be a little harsher at first.

Have you decided what color you want the outside and the inside woodwork painted?

What color you want the studio floor painted? It will be a soft pine and a substantial coating of paint is necessary.

I put one coat of deep blue paint on everything I made last winter, frames, etc., but only to protect the frames from warping, not for permanence.

The more I think of the outside color of the adobe the less I am inclined to the white clay. The house stands alone, on a slight prominence, and it would look better earth color. All the houses in front of it are hideous colored cement. The white-yellowish clay would look too much like their cement plaster I think.

I think I E's suggestion of light adobe is good, if we can find a hard light color. When I plastered Henry Hatri s' house I used a lovely cafe au lait but it is soft and it has not stood up like the common adobe. I'll look around.

I think I can make the studio walls as you ant them. Do you want the bath and kitchen painted in oil? It is nicer in steamy places to have oil painted walls. Select colors and I will put on what you want.

I think you spoke of a yellow bath.

The peach trees have big circular trenches dug up around them and we filled the trenches with rotted manure and soaked them in water. Then we pruned the trees heavily and painted the cuts over with white lead. The poor things have been standing without attention since Dorman set them out 20 years ago. They are the best thing about the lot and should be preserved.

I think this is all.

PS:

Ann

Will you want a common refrigerator, about 50 pouns of ice capacity, for about 20.00, or do you want mechanical refrigeration at 100.00 or more? It is well to know the type of refrigerator in order to build presses around it.

Have you decided on the electric light fixtures? tin?

10 April 34

lynn

I have noted a corner tub and not a recess with a special wall.

Clothes press will be finished like the bath. Linoleum tambien.

I sent the picture of the dedication a few days ago.

Since last writing we have planted a butterfly bush, sometimes
called a summer lilac, but properly called buddlei, and a blue wisteria
vine, both near the portal.

Your letter of April 7: Send anything you like in my care. Very
soon we shall be able to look things up in the house. The express has not
yet arrived.

Today the house looked sweeter than it has ever looked. Bernardino
made the fireplace. It is in the corner by the front door. Front door is
a misnomer as there is neither front nor back to the house, it is quite
balanced. Then this afternoon we built the fat little chimney on top
of the firewall, in the north side, and I think he got it just right.
I wanted the east edge of the north door to appear to be extending
straight up and run into the west side of the chimney, and while Bernard-
ino stood on top we dangled a string with a heavy tool tied to it, caught
the east line of the door, and built the chimney from that line.

Roy Gardener did the electric wiring today. Everything is as you ordered
in a letter a long time ago. I gave you a doorbell. Did you want it ? If you
build the other bedroom I think you had better have a bell, don't you?

Do you want a telephone? Where? We have to take off from a company
pole slightly west of the kitchen door. The electric wires will enter the house
through the west kitchen wall, where they will be least observed. The metre box
will be on the north kitchen wall behind the kitchen door, when opened.

I have made you a sweet little cooler in the north kitchen wall, vented,
with shelves, and it can be used for a refrigerator in winter.

About the refrigerator: It is being discussed now because we have to
know something about its size so that the shelves may be built around it.
They have at Broome's a used furniture department, and there is a very
well made refrigerator there, 100 pound capacity, and porcelain lined,
which has been used and which they sell for 20.00. New it would cost 45.00.
If you like we can reserve it for the kitchen. If painted like the other things
it will be as good as a new one.

I suggest your buying everything you can at Hollywood. They have the
trashiest things here and very expensive.

For a bed I use an excellent box spring, a very good mattress, and the
2 resting on a board frame my carpenter made me, and which does not show
when there is an Indian print or something over the bed. I recommend it.

Tomorrow we start to plaster. Inside, when that is finished we hang
the doors and windows and we have a closed house. It is still gaping wide
open like adenoids.

The house is reaching the impatient stage, I can't bear to go home nights.

Greetings.

Ann

THIS SIDE OF CARD IS FOR ADDRESS

Rancho Yucca Loma,
Victerville, Calif.

April 11, 1934.

Dear Ann:

I hope you won't be annoyed. Not waiting for an answer to my inquiry as to whether I could send some things to you there, I went ahead and did so. Pay storage on them if they turn out to be a nuisance, but please receive them anyway.

Here is a list of things sent. They are all more or less minor things. The big things I have still to buy, and will do most of it at Sanbusco.

I'm up here on the desert for a couple of days for a much-needed rest. At the moment I'm sitting on a western portal of an adobe house, looking at Old Baldy, snow-capped, and very Sangre de Cristo-ish in the distance.

The picture of the *skid* dedication party arrived, and I'm having it framed - it's the first picture to go into the mansion.

You haven't spent much money to date. I imagine the finishing will be the most expensive item. I'll send a chunk of money when I get back to Hollywood, so you won't run low. I forgot to bring my BUILDING FUND cheque-book.

I'm enclosing a little sketch of a Niche. I think it had better be done now, don't you? It will save breaking plaster and *hazing* loosening adobes.

About the color of the door and window frames outside the house: Please find me a green, not a dead one, and not too dark, perhaps toward the green of turquoise -but definitely not blue - which will go well with the yellow of the portal facade.

About the living room floor: I think - because of the color scheme I'm working out - I'll want a reddish brown, but I'm not sure. Could you put in a coat or two of white sizing, and let us decide after I arrive?

In the bath: Under one of the south windows, could you put the thrid towel rack - for bath towels - like this:

Lynn Riggs Esq
800 North Crescent Hts Bldv
Hollywood California

12 April 34

I:

If you have Navajo blankets in mind for the floors may I speak a good word for my Domingo friend Patricio Calabaso (in other words, Pat Squash) from whom I buy the ones I use in my studios. He is just leaving for the Navajo country and he will be here the first part of May probably when you are.

A.

ANN WEBSTER
SANTA FE

13 April 34

Lynn

I have written you that it isn't any trouble to receive anything you want to send. I don't think I shall open the things though, as they are arriving very well packed and can be opened better when you come. Bullocks sent the box with pillows. No notice of the Barker packages yet.

When you and I.E. select the kitchen pots and basins I recommend Stainless Steel for everything. It has aluminum beaten to pieces. The pots are very well shaped, with large bottoms that cover the entire gas burner, and the difference in the capacity of the pots is in the height only. I use them and they are perfect. They cost a little more than aluminum, but they remain untarnished and bright and wear beatifully.

If there is a Montgomery Ward in Los Angeles you might go in there and look at them. I bought my things by catalogue from MW. Don't be fooled by copper. It is only pretty once-in the shop. Yes, I can fit 2 towel racks under the west end window. south

Today your house is like this: All the house inside is plastered in rough adobe, and waiting over the week end to dry for the finish coat of hard plaster, which will be velvety finish for Kalsomine in the studio and smooth for oil paint in the kitchen and bath.

The house is half plastered outside, in rough adobe and will be finished Monday. We have very good quality adobe dirt on the lot and this when mixed with equal parts sand of a pinkish color, makes the finish coat of adobe outside. I made a sample and put it on and let it dry over night. It was very good, being lighter and pinker than the ground, on account of the sand.

I hesitate to use any adobe plaster simply because it is pretty, because I did that on Henry Harris' house, 2 years ago, and now I have to do it all over again. I took a lovely cafe au lait which looked delicious enough to bite, but it was too soft and mushy down the hill in the first and every subsequent rain.

I do not want to put white plaster (like my own house) on any one's else(on sober reflection) because I do not know what it will do under starmyconditions. We have had a dry winter and it has stood up well on my house and I love it, but I myself must take the chances. Again, as I wrote you before, I do not think a white house will look well sticking up on that hill. For these reasons, I have not brought Jan and Gina into it, as I gathered from you you wanted them consulted only if I decided to use the white.

I like the sample of adobe and sand very much, and I think you will.

Then returning to the house, the plumbing is all piped and the sewers closed up. They gaped at us all week. Then Roy Gardener has chiselled little canals all over the walls and imbedded electric conduits and things, and now they are all covered up with adobe.

On account of your plan to add the other rooms I have undertaken 2 minor expenditures. First by laying hot water pipes under the studio floor from the kitchen heater to the east door, and second by placing an electric switch outside the east door in the wall from which new connections may spring when you want them. These 2 precautions will eliminate the need for tearing down of plaster in the walls and the tearing up of double floors when you build and want the 2 connections. In The Sewer pipe runs across the south side of the building and directly under the proposed bathroom, so we set a Y in the sewer pipe, and set a long stake in the ground to mark the spot, and direct connection can be made with the sewer when we want it.

We made a fire in the fireplace. It works.

I am having some rough flat stone hauled for the portal and for the stepping stones at the north and west doors. I found very good quality creamy rough stones, rather large pieces, for 1.70 a wagon load. The red flag stone costs 5.00 a load and then it requires a real American mason to lay it at high wages. The Whites paid 12.00 a day to have a small portal laid last summer.

So I hope you will like the rough. I have it all over my garden walks and portal.

I will have your niche cut as you desire.

Mr Ross is making the front door.

Let me know about the colors I sent you. Greetings.

Ann.

April 13, 1934

Dear Ann:

Your letter of April 8th.

The peach blossom is very impressive. Thank you
very much. I'm enclosing a hasty plan - no doubt
the proportions are not quite right - for the
bedroom and the placita. This may be useful
about planting, etc. I wanted the placita to
be rather longer along the Poniente than the
other direction, unless it becomes too large that
way.

I'm returning the bids on the plumbing. I gather
that you ordered from the Standard Sanitary Mfg.
Co.

The studio ceiling height sounds fine.

You will have had my word about the wardrobe
by this time.

Yes, I'm going to have a studio couch. Instead
of buying a box spring and mattress here, however,
and having the frame built there, I think I'll
be able to get the whole thing here rather cheaply.
If so, I'll send it on.

I'm glad you left the dovetailing. I've got to
have a place for my puppy - no matter how small
(I mean the placita, not the dog).

I think I'll stick to the gas-steam radiator.
I know it will work - you yourself have proved
it. Perhaps later, if I change my mind, you can
dispose of the radiator for me. Anyway, to decide
quickly, just go ahead with the radiator. I
haven't time to go and look at the furnaces anyway.

You didn't say how much of the rest of the sum
you need now, so I'm sending a check for the
whole batch. According to my figures, I have
already sent $855.90. The enclosed check for
$472.10 makes $1328.00. I notice you have
included some things in your estimate that I
thought I'd have to buy as furnishing. I'm
delighted to see I'm going to save some money.
If the horse really comes in under this wire,
I have only to pay the Starting Judge.

-2-

Yes, I imagine the Ballantine placita facade is softer than it used to be. Please use whatever color will age to the shade.

I've answered the question about the color of the outside woodwork. Inside the house, just stain the door frames and doors, etc. At the moment, just leave the ceiling and windows as they are.

Enclosed is a sample which is approximately the color I'd like the floor. Please don't make it any redder than this; I want to use some yellow furnishing and some turquoise-green-blue with it. Do you think this sounds all right?

Do whatever you think best about the outside mud plaster. I'm sorry the cafe au lait on Henri's house didn't turn out to be practical. If Andrew Dasburg is there, he could tell you where he got that color mud he used on the Camino house. Nancy Lane might know. She made her studio the same color - she might have got the mud from the same place.

Yes, use oil for kitchen and bath.

On the kitchen, if you think it looks all right, try painting the walls white, the door and window frames a turquoise-greenish-blue, the presses the same as the door and window frames and (unless you have already ordered the linoleum) use the same black and white square for the kitchen as you are using in the bath.

Yes, I would like the bath painted yellow. Try the same shade you use under the portal, unless it seems too harsh for inside. I want it to be bright and cheerful. Perhaps this piece of yellow typewriter paper might be the right shade.

I'm glad you saved the peach trees. I didn't realize they were that old.

Your letter of April 10th.

The house sounds ready to live in - but I suppose there's lots to do still.

Thanks for the doorbell and the cooler in the kitchen.

Yes, I want a telephone. But don't have the instrument put in yet so that I won't have to

-3-

pay telephone bills. Incidentally, when I do
have the telephone put in, I want a French hand-
phone. Put the box more or less under my work
table at the east window, or a little farther
toward the south wall. I'll want to use it at
my work table and from my bed-couch-cot.

I wish I could afford a General Electric refrigerat-
tor right this moment. However, I can't. So
please reserve the second-hand hundred pound
capacity refrigerator at Broome's, and save enough
space out of the presses for the future installation
of a medium-sized General Electric refrigerator.

You suggest my buying everything out here. You
don't mean pots and pans, kitchen utensils, etc.,
do you? I thought Sanbusco could supply those.

I've just come back from the desert, and this is
my first action. The only thing mentioned in
your two letters I haven't mentioned is the
postscript to your letter of April 8th, which
asks about ten electric light fixtures. If you
have already wired the house, I suppose it's too
late to suggest that I might want ten Mexican
light fixtures on the wall on either side of the
bookcases, two very plain ones on either side
of the mirror cabinet in the bath (for shaving).

The drawing of the house is swell. I like the
lines very much - and the fireplace line is just
right. I don't dare ask for any more pictures -
they'll probably be here before I ask.

Anyway, it all sounds very exciting and I can
hardly wait to get into it.

Greetings.

As ever,

P.S. By the time I get there, perhaps I won't
need any heat in the living room. Would it be
a good idea to put the pipes in for the gas
radiator and decide during the summer whether
to try the furnace or not? I think, however,
I'd better have a little gas-steam radiator in
the bath right away. Please give me an outside
vent, lest I perish in the tub.

P.S. No 2. I may change my mind about buying the

April 15, 1934.

Dear Ann:

My telegram was because I had thought you were more or less committed to painting that pine floor - but your letter containing samples arrived, and I saw you weren't. George had been telling me a way he did his own floors and it sounded as though I might like it very much. Hence the burnt umber wire. He used 1 to 2 tablespoonsfuls of the burnt umber to a quart of oil, with a little turpentine.

You'll really be delighted with some of thexx things I've bought out here. Some are very ordinary, of course, but inexpensive. Here's a note on the latest batch of things from Bullock's. There won't be many more.

Are you putting in for me a good mirror cabinet in the bath above the lavatory? If it's not too late, please set it into the wall. I'd like one a pretty fair size.

Will you buy the window shades for all the studio windows and get them in if possible before I arrive? I'd like them to be (unless you've already ordered them) that kind that has dark green on the outside and cream or tan on the inside. I imagine I'd best have shades in the kitchen, too. What do you think? And do I want them in the bath? Anyway, do as you decide about it.

I'm returning the color cards. I've answered most of (in letters this before). The turquoise shades I want are not here, but you will have by now. I imagine can be made by mixing greens and blues. The portal yellow you selected seems dim. Isn't Ballentine much sharper and brighter?

Just to get it all more or less said together:

Studio -

Walls - Cream

Wood frames - Stained

Floor - Stained

Ceiling - Unfinished

Kitchen -

Walls - White

Wood frames and Presses - Turquoise, but green rather than blue.

Floor - B. and W. Linoleum - (or other, as you wish)

Bath -

Walls - Yellow

Wood frames - ? ?

Floor - B. and W. linoleum

16 April 34

Lynn

I have your telegram, your letter of apl 13 and your check for 472.10.

As to your comments in their order:

The placita will be longer along the Poniente on account of the distance of the peach tree from the house. You said you wanted the peach tree in the southwest corner of the placita. It is a particularly lovely shaped one. The south tree has been damaged by havings many of its limbs broken during its lifetime.

The plumbing is ordered from Sanitary etc.

I noted wardrobe remarks in a previous letter.

I telephoned Ernie telling him to make a sketch of bed frame and send it to you with estimate.

four

You can easily add a nine foot wall around the proposed library, bath and bedroom, which will be a good run for the puppy.

Some items are properly furnishings but they have to be installed now for these reasons: Linoleum has to be in place, cemented down, before the plumbing fixtures are set on top. Otherwise, with the objects on the floor, it is difficult and unsanitary to chop holes in the linoleum and attempt to fit it around pipes and fixtures. Refrigerator: The proportions have to be at least known because we cannot build the presses in the kitchen until we know the size. However I can measure the one at Broomes and ask them to hold it for you and you can install when you come. A drain has to be installed by the plumber and this cannot be done without knowing the position of the opening in the bottom of whatever refrigerator you are going to have.

Range: This has to be installed with the other gas and plumbing by the
plumber but it can wait until your arrival if you desire.

I did nothing to the ceiling and vigas in any rooms. They are natural. The walls of studio will be No. 81, a creamy white. I assume you mean a brown oak stain when you say just stain the doors, etc, inside. I don't quite understand the telegram as to the floor, but when the color cards are returned I will see what you mean.

I will try to run down the Lane mud plaster. Since my Harris house experience I have sought the hardest and not the lightest colored mud. I like what we have on the lot, as I wrote you, and it will save us the cost of hauling if we use it.

The white kitchen with turquoise borders will look well. It is too late to jump back to black and white squares for both rooms as the order went in last week and these two small amounts have been ordered. You will remember I recommended the same for both rooms, it would have been cheaper as there is waste in cutting 2 pieces. But you will like the green I got for the kitchen. It is nice living green and not that dark green used in offices and on battleships.

Yellow bath. Your shade of paper is good.

I am not going to put in your telephone. Under their ordinance the telephone company is required to put in the instrument from the nearest pole to the nearest wall in the house. This would mean the kitchen, as I wrote you.

In case you do not want the telephone in the kitchen it will be necessary for the electrician to carry the wires in a conduit across the roof to the place where you do want it. The telephone company will not do this and if we wait until your arrival and until the house is finished, the electrician will then chop up the finished walls, inside and out, and insert his conduit.

As to your question about color schemes: Turquoise-blue-and-green makes a lovely color. I have never cared for browns in the house and I care less in this country than anywhere else because there is so much brown in the earth and in the adobe walls and the roads and everything surrounding us. I should like it better if instead of putting brown and yellow with the turquoise, you went off into more rose-beige, more reddish tans, etc.

The electrician wanted to put 2 lights over your lavatory for shaving but your instructions called for one. It is not too late to change and put 2 on the sides, as the hard plaster is not on. The same applies to the bookcase end of the studio, where you ordered one base plug. No fixtures are included in the estimates. You can get what you want from old Delgado, in Canon Road.

I'll ask Raymie to make more pictures when I can catch him.

The radiators I have used in my own house and in all my studios, in Haniel's house and other places, are not vented. There is a combustion chamber in which the gases are neutralized. I have seen the vented kinds and they have not worked as well as the draft down the vent blows out the pilot light and then the gas escapes. My radiator in my bath is lighted in September and turned out the end of May. It is a perfect machine.

In every place I have built I have installed radiators as soon as the pipes were laid and lighted them several weeks in advance of a tenant's coming in. (Excepting Donald Clark's) The adobes are laid up in thick layers of wet mud; the walls are soaked with a hose and, then several inches of dripping wet mud are applied inside and out. Then when the surfaces are dried they are again wet with a hose and the finish plaster is put on wet. The walls may be dry enough by the time you arrive for you to live in the house, but I am afraid my doors and windows will swell and stick, especially since you are not ordering coats of real paint on the inside windows and doors, (the stain does not resist moisture like paint.) if there is no radiator set up in the living room.

Mrs de Huff asked me for your address.

Greetings.

Ann

April 16, 1934

Dear Ann:

If you recommend stainless steel, stainless steel it is. Would you consider it a great bore to buy the things I'll need in the way of pots and pans, kitchen utensils, mops and brooms, etc? I need only enough for very simple living, and I don't want to spend much on it. Montgomery Ward - or wherever you like - suits me. Please let me know about it - so I'll know whether to do it myself or not.

The things I have for kitchen use or for dining - some of which do not show on the lists I've sent you from time to time - are as follows:

All the table glasses I need.

Set of silver for dining.

After-dinner coffee cups.

2 Serving trays.

All the lunch cloths I need.

All the napkins I need.

One pressure cooker, 10 quart capacity.

Complete set of dishes.

Electric coffee maker (I need percolator too).

Extra odds and ends of dishes (Including serving coffee and tea pots).

One pantry set (Including large bread box, and four round cannisters, one pepper mill, one tiny butter mold).

I'm sure I'll like the outside adobe - and I'm glad you've gone ahead with it.

The hot water pipes, and the electric connections for the addition to the house, will be a great saving.

I not only will put up with the rough flat stone for the portal - I prefer it. The other stuff is a little too suave for me.

I thought I was going to have an ordinary front door - something out of a catalogue. I'm more than delighted that it's being made instead.

I'm enclosing a new list of things which go to you today.

April 17, 1934

Dear Ann:

I've decided it would be foolish to wait until I come to do the closet in the bathroom. GO has helped me work it out, and here it is, looking very professional. Please go ahead with it, when you get to it, so I'll have a place to lay my shoes.

Here are some added notes:

1. I don't know how high the ceiling is, so we had to do some guess work and leave some spaces conditioned by the height.

2. The whole closet space, as you see, is to be concealed, with the door fronts on hinged doors.

3. Change dimensions a little, if necessary for the space, but keep the 60" x 60" place for my suits and shoes, and keep the 15" space for tall wine bottles.

4. The two doors in the center clothen press should have locks on them, and go all the way up to the top of the closet space, concealing the open shelf above.

5. The door which conceals the shelves over the drawers on the right can use the same lock and key as the others.

6. If there is room above the shower for another drawer, or even a closed space with a door, please put it in.

7. I don't know whether the whole press should be painted yellow to match the walls or whether it should be white to match the tub, etc. Please decide for yourself.

8. Please put in a shoe rack - just a half inch board upended - all along the floor of the suit cabinet. Please don't make it for women's shoes. A man's shoes never fit on them.

-2-

9. Please have the drawer fronts made so that they overlap the cracks when closed.

10. What should be done about the open space between the vigas on top of the clothes cabinet? I know it will catch dust, but it seems a shame to close it. Wouldn't it be best just to leave it and set there those odds and ends of Mexican and Indian pots, etc., one collects?

11. Please put a clothes bar all the way across in the clothes press for my suits. Also, the closet is deep enough to allow a few hooks in the back wall.

12. The last two bathrooms I've more or less inhabited had no hook anywhere in sight to hang my bathrobe. Please give me a hook on the bathroom door.

13. I have found out here a cheap chest of drawers, which I think I'll send to go into the nitch made by the stopped-up door into the future bedroom. I can put the towels in it and save all the other space for my personal effects.

Thus endeth the bathroom epistle.

Greetings!

April 17, 1934.

Dear Ann:

Today I ordered some more things sent. I imagine by this
time, all things can go in the house. They'll be safe
there, won't they?

Here are their lists.

Just to keep everything straight - here is a summary of
the lists sent you of things arriving. Please let me know
when each batch arrives, and I'll check it off on my copy.

List No. 1 -- April 6 - Barker's - Towels, blankets, napkins, etc. Shipping Collect

No. 2 -- April 9 - Bullocks - Dishes, etc.
Shipping Paid

Bullocks - Cushions, etc.
Shipping Collect

Barker's - Chair.
Shipping Collect

No. 3 -- April 14 - Bullock's - Bed, Chairs, etc.
Freight Collect
In 2 Instalments

Bullock's - Plates, Coffee Maker, etc.
Shipping Paid

Bullock's - Pantry set, etc.
Shipping Paid

No. 4 -- April 16 - May Co. - Pressure Cooker - Shipping Paid - (Mail ?)

Barker's - Blanekt, etc.
Shipping Collect

Sear - Roebuck - Lamp, Chairs.
Lamp - Eshak - Shipping Paid
Chairs - Shipping Collect

April 19, 1934

Dear Ann:

Your letter of April 16th.

I won't know my plans for arriving for a few
days yet. I'm positively going to have some
kind of placita - either the small one or
the large one. However, I'll decide after
I arrive.

I didn't think to indicate in a recent letter
that I had any objection to certain items
being installed now - even though they are
properly called furnishings. In fact, I
was delighted because you'd included them
in your estimates - which automatically
took the expenditure off my furnishings.

Please do install the refrigerator and the
range - and naturally the linecum. Yes,
you did suggest the same black and white
squares for both bath and kitchen. However,
now that I've changed my mind back and forth
a couple of times, I'm sure the green will
do fine.

OK on the brown oak stain for the studio
woodwork. My letter following the telegram
has explained about the burnt umber floor.
Later, we can paint over it if it seems wise
or necessary.

You will have had my letter saying OK on the
Rigors mud for the outside adobe plaster.

Would it be more of a nuisance to put in the
telephone now (since walls evidently have to
be chopped anyway to get the telephone in
the studio)? If not, please go ahead with it.
I don't mind the extra cost. I've suffered
too much from telephones being out of reach.

I rather that you've changed the lights over
the lavatory and put in two, according to my
belated suggestion. The fixtures at the
bookcase end of the studio can be put in or
not, as you decide. Also, if you find some-
thing at Delgado's in the way of fixtures that

-2-

you like, please put them in - I know I'll
like them too.

If the radiator in your bath can stay lighted
from September to May, I reckon mine can. So
please put one in. Never mind about the
outside vent.

Also, if you're going to try the gas radiator
in your next studio, please allow me to change
my mind again about the heating of the living
room. Please order one of those floor furnaces
and put it in for me. I don't care where the
opening is - just so it isn't under my bed.

I'll either be there in about two weeks or
about five. You can gather what an uncertain
life I'm leading. However, I'll know pretty
accurately in a few days.

So, Mrs. DeHuff wants my address, eh? She'll
rue it.

Greetings.

<table><tr><td>THIS SIDE OF CARD IS FOR ADDRESS</td></tr></table>

Lynn Riggs Esq

800 Crescent Hts Blvd

Hollywood California

24 Apl 34

2

Everything is progressing. All doors and windows have locks and handles, with dull black throughout except bath which is chromium plate to match fixtures. Clothes press is set up as to its frame and drawers will be made soon. Very good size and provision for tons of objects. Bundles continue to snow us under and everything will be removed to house tomorrow. Paint is now being mixed for color and Gina and her mother are passing on the final color. All of us are opposed to white and blue for the kitchen. Room has its first priming coat of white on now and being a north room it resembles a refrigerator, it is so cold. Please give us permission to go ahead on a warmer color, which will harmonize with the green linoleum. We would like a **very pale** terracotta. Telephone conduit is in, next to bed and close to table. Telephoned for furnace Sunday night after our conversation and will start a blast as soon as it arrives. meanwhile am burning wood. ann.

Ann Webster
Santa Fe

Wednesday 25 Apl 34

Lynn, I am terribly sorry that you did not receive my letters. Unfortunately I don't keep copies and I have written so much I don't know what I said in any special one. But I wrote twice I KNOW, and there may have been a third. They were mailed the same way all the letters are mailed here, placed in a special place by the door and Juanita's children carry them to the PO on the way to St Francis School.

I remember that I sent you a cut of gas range, with a 4 burner top and an oven and broiler, in one letter. The gas company carries it at 65.00. Then the gas company has a 3 burner top, with oven and broiler, but not such a good stove or course, at 37.50. Then I told you M Wardoo had one with a 3 burner top and oven, but NO BROILER, at 25.95, in Denver, which means freight added. The gas company stoves are priced installed. By recommendation is the 35.00 gas company one.

I also told you that the 2 lights were added to the shaving mirror, and that 2 more were added to the bookcase.

The telephone is also ready, that is, the box to receive it.

Also the niche for the bed lamp, being 15 inches high in the centre, slightly pointed, and fairly narrow.

I have not written anything but postal cards this week as I have been every minute on the job, working with 2 carpenters, finishing the masonry, mixing color and testing out the effects,

I also told you about the cabinet in the bath. Sanbusco started to show me things at 29.50 a piece, 24.00, etc., but I got a very good one with a mirror 18 inches by 24 inches, much larger than the average, made in metal, and it is set in and plastered tight. It is very good with the 2 side lights.

In making the press in the bath we found that the press would go so close to the vigas that there would be merely little holes between them and no room for ollas. So we closed up the holes by building shaped pieces around the vigas, and it looks as though they were resting on the press. This makes the closet tight and dust proof, and looks well too. After taking off your 15 inch shelf over the drawers we had room for a 10 inch shelf below and an 8 inch in the middle. The 6 drawers will be, 10, 9, 6, 6, 6, and 4 inches. This gave you the maximum of deep drawers with one shallow one. The clothes rod will extend through the 60 inch space you designate and through the 30 inches behind the tub on to the west adobe wall. In the west end of your 7 1/2 foot closet you can hang the things you use least.

I told you that heavy curtains will do in the kitchen and that the bath ditto. I will get duplex shades for the living room.

A black bath curtain would be swell. Get it out there and I will send the white duck on which comes with a shower set back.

I stained the big front door like the studio doors. It has large bolts on it, 50 of them, and there are knots in the wood. I think you'll like it.

I glanced through your late letters for part of this information to refresh my memory.

I ordered and have received: 3 stainless steel saucepans and lids.

1 stainless double boiler.

1 stainless steel skillet.

They are very nice.

The mops and brooms can be bought locally.

Your list of kitchen and dining room equipment looks complete.

If you can get blankets cheaper at Gallup get them there, but save at least one for Patricio.

You do not have to build a bridge over the acequia. The big wagon bridge on the Poneiente is sufficient. But I plan to make a little foot path of spaced stone pieces down from the kitchen door and lay 2 vigas across with a few short cut boards tacked on, so that one may leave by the back door and not travel up to the big bridge in order to get down. I have put a night latch on the kitchen door as well as the front door.

I told you something that the ugly houses across the road were numbered in the 760's, 750's, and 700's, and I asked you how you would like 770, for a number.

If you do and if you like, I will cut out paper numbers and ask My Kiesov, a Russian worker, to make them out of iron for .50 a piece. He made mine in Canon Road for thet. 1117.

There are other letters of yours unanswered but I have to go now.

Gre tings.

Ann.

April 26, 1934

Dear Ann:

Your card of the 24th.

By all means go ahead on a warmer color for the
kitchen - very pale terra cotta, or what you will.

Alas, my sight of the house retreats again into
the future. This time I'm "approximately definite".
I've just signed a contract with Universal to do
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Mr. Dickens. Uni-
versal guarantees me three weeks. In return, I
guarantee Universal to finish the Shooting Script
in five weeks from today. This, according to
dead reckoning, will bring my servitude up to
May 31st. Then, allowing me a few days to pack,
etc., I ought to be on my way by June 2 or 3 -
arriving in Santa Fe June 4 or 5.

I hope the house will be all right so long un-
attended by me.

I can't possibly fly over or motor over to see
what's going on, because I'm absolutely working
against time as it is.

Ida Eastman leaves Saturday night for a day or
two in Santa Fe on her way to New York. She
will arrive in Santa Fe Sunday night around
10 or 11, and will probably give you a ring
Monday. I've told her all about the way I want
my curtains made, and have asked her to take you
if you'd mind getting them done and hung in the
next five weeks some time. Don't do it if it's
a great chore.

Your lost letters probably answered my questions
about whether or not you'd get the kitchen things
for me.

Here is a list of some other things which went to
you from Bullock's on April 21 or 22,

I didn't hear from Ernie about the news - and
as you gather, I went ahead - and got one.
Later, if I want to cut off the news and but

-2-

in one of those frames, perhaps I can.

I intended to wait and have my tables built there,
also. But I could get such good ones here and
cheaply that I went ahead and ordered them. They
will be sent by truck, probably about Saturday.

A mysterious phone call just came, reporting that
Mrs. Webster of Santa Fe was ready to talk to me
now, and asking if I had placed a call. I hadn't
since last Sunday - so I gather it was some sort
of mixup relative to that.

It's very nice of Gina and Mrs. Schnaufer to confer
with you about those wall colors, etc. Gina's
little house at the McComb's was a杰en.

I meant to write to all the cornerstone laying
party individually to thank them. But actually
I haven't had the time to do it - and I see no
time ahead. Please tell them my troubles.

I was very cheered by your information on Sunday
about everything.

If I arrive by June 5, I'll have exactly 17 days
in the house before I shove off to Chicago. I'll
be in Chicago, however, only 5 weeks and 2 days.
So I'll really take up my sojourn around the last
week in July or the first of August. <u>But I'll live</u>
<u>in that house yet!</u>

Greetings.

P.S. Let me know how the money holds out. If
it gets too low, there's still some more in the
building fund. Soon, I ought to be paying for the
lot, don't you think?

26 April 34

Lynn

Ann Webster

Santa Fe

Great mystery. Juanita reported that Los Angeles was calling and asked me to call operator. False alarm.

We are getting along so fast with our house that most of the workers will be laid off tomorrow. I am preparing a strip of fir painted and stained in sections showing you the different colors I am using. You may think the outside turquoise a bit strong but remember it has to face a Santa Fe summer sun and that it will be a sickly blue before long, yellow being obliterated in that burning glare.

I love the bath yellow, it is mostly on this noon, and the room sings. I am still waiting for your message about the kitchen. We put on a priming coat of white and it is so cold there now. Please change your mind.

Great Scott but you selected a costly wardrobe for your bathroom. Every day 2 carpenters plane and saw and chisel and gouge on the drawers and the mortising a and the mitering and everything and I could have built another room for what it is going to cost. Don't get any more ideas like that.

The refrigerator came over this morning to be built into position. And the linoleum has arrived and will be laid tomorrow.

Do you want the bookshelves built into the niche in the studio or what, and how far apart. 10 in. below, then a few 9's, and the top ones 8 ?

It is a shallow shelf because I had only a thin adobe wall there when I had your order for a niche, and I had to chisel out as little as possible, but the niche is 7 inches deep. It will take average books.

Last night PEM Parsons telephoned me. She had just returned from Kansas City where she has been ever since I asked her about the wedge-shaped lot. She said that the narrow lot was approximately 90 feet long, that it might be 25 ft or so on the west side, and that there was no east side as the north and south lines converge. She wants 300.00 for the lot, title to which has been quieted. She also said that there was a sewer assessment against the lot of appx. 130100 I mean 130.00, which has to be borne by the purchaser. 430.00, total, more or less.

Now, I would not recommend the purchase of the lot adjoining yours from Lorman, and which lies directly south of the Parons lot, unless one bought and threw into one strip, the Parsons lot. For the reason that she might dispose of it to your disadvantage. And unsightly building or something. On the other hand, I think her price exorbitant, as one pays then 1430.00 for less land than you have bought for 750.00.

Would I.R. consider any other one of the lots ? Wh dont you sell her the back half of yours ? The south end, if you are not going to extend your placita, along the Poniente, is apprx. 1/3 of your land and would make a sweet site.

But if you don't sell your south lot to I.E., I would defer building a room and bath and build a wall all around the entire property. The land lies very wide open today. The Acequia Loma which is the south boundary of the Dorman tract, is bordered with Mexican families of not very nice type with hord s of predatory children. We have to lock up everything we own at night, I keep a huge wooden box there with a padlock, and now we lock the house. We keep the woodpile which we are burning for the walls, in the house as not a splinter would be left if we did not. A wall need not have any cement in its foundation at all, just stones laid up in adobe mud and adobe bricks on top. It would not be expensive.

I am still grieving about the letters you lost, or that were lost, rather. I said a thousand things. I can never remember everything.

The wall would begin and end with the sides of the house, it would not extend across the front triangle.

The stonework is completed and it is terribly nice. A great wide portal as long as the bath, studio and 4 feet beyond, and very deep, 10 feet or more.

Then an irregular patch by the front door, which winds out in stepping stones to the poniente-front corner. Then a smallish rectangle at the kitchen door, inclosed with a low wall, about 30 inches of adobe bricks, high, for the gas meter, the garbage pail and the woodpile. And stone steps chopped in to the acequia. I believe you'll like the stonework. Rough and irregular.

Since starting this letter a truck arrived full of chairs and other objects, and they were about to carry the things in when I heard the commotion and sent them over to the acequia. I'll go over now and report this evening.

It is the noon hour now.

* * * * * * *

Now it's 5:00.

The truck brought us a deck chair made of little boughs. 6 unpainted chairs. A chest of drawers which just slides into the doorway in the bath, and which is already painted beautiful yellow. A bookcase. A set of little shelves. The walls of the bathbare painted and look lovely. I rather like strong colors, I hope they wont be too strong for you.

The carpenters seemed to have advanced a few inches today. I shall be glad when they are through.

I want to commend especially the stonework on the door sills. I hope that you will enjoy the doorsills as much as I do.

Today I dashed downtown to shop for the towel bars and things. The heavy opaque white ones are awfully expensive, costing about 3.00 each. I bought 3 very nice chromium plated ones, which are heavy enough and which do not look a bit like the dime store, for .75 each. If you really dont like them they can be removed and white ones the same size put in their place, but I think they will look well with the fixtures. All hardware in the bath, the window locks, doorknobs, etc., are chromium plated and the bars will fit in very well.

We are putting 12 clothes hooks in the back of your closet and a triple prong one on the bath door.

I am going to have them start to lay linoleum tomorrow.

I think I told you the conduit for the telephone is in, but you will make your own arrangements for an instrument when you come.

Today three men spent several hours grading and scraping and leveling the grounds around the house, carrying away the broken stones and adobes, and making the place look less like it had erupted from some great depth. Now I am going to telephone all the friends that we are ready to receive shrubs and things.

Our trees are all living. That is assured.

And, very important, I ordered Lorman to write a thousand dollar fire insurance policy on the house today at noon. This has nothing to do with construction and I told him to send you the bill. There is a reduced rate for 3 year terms, I always use them, and I think the cost for the period is 11.00.

Also we bought a broom and floor mop and clothes today so that it can be put in applepie order before you arrive.

Greetings AW

I have just remembered that one letter that went astray was in a large cream colored envelope with my name printed on it. It was the letter that had the cut of the gas range.

April 23, 1934

Dear Ann:

Your letter of April 25th.

The gas range you recommend is all right with me.

The bathroom clothes press sounds fine. I can't tell you how pleased I am that (thanks to God knows what manipulation of pipes) the compartment for my suits will be 7½ feet instead of 6 feet. I was wondering how I could possibly get along without using a trunk some place or overcrowding.

I haven't done anything about getting curtains for the kitchen or the bath. I don't imagine it will be any great loss to wait until I come, so that I can see the shade of the walls. However, if you find you can get somebody to go ahead with my studio curtains, as I suggested in my letter of April 26th, perhaps you wouldn't mind also selecting curtains for the bath and kitchen, and have them done at the same time. Should there be shades in the kitchen also? Decide as you please.

I'll see if I can find the black bath curtain. Please give the dimensions to Ida, and she will relay them to me when I telephone her at La Fonda on Monday night. If there's any other word you want to get to me, please let her know.

The front door sounds marvelous.

Tell Patricio that I'll get at least one blanket from him if he has what I need - which he probably does.

The little foot bridge sounds very attractive. Please see about the possibility of a garage and storehouse up in the northwest corner of my lot, and show Ida how it would look there. Also, let me know whether there is another place

April 30, 1934.

Dear Ann:

Your letter of April 26th.

You are more shocked by the cost of the ward-
robe than I will be. I know cabinet work is
expensive. But I'm having exactly what I
want and you can blame me for it.

Yes, please put in the book shelves in the
studio. You suggest 10 inches below, then
a few inches, and the top ones eight. It
sounds right to me.

Pem Parsons' figures are of course absurd. I suggested once to Ida that perhaps I'd have space on the south end of my lot for her to build. In fact, I tried to guess at how much I could spare. My only concern about it was not to sacrifice the feeling of having some open country and not to have a house built which would look into my private placita. I'll see what she says tonight when I telephone.

You're probably right about the advisability
of building a wall all around my lot. You
say it wouldn't be expensive. I think we
variously estimated the cost of my bedroom
at $500. Would the wall cost that much -
or less?

The stone work sounds very nice.

Please let me know at once if among the
chairs, chests, etc., which arrived by
truck, there was also a small typewriter
table with three drawers. You had given
me the dimensions of the little doorway-
niche in the bathroom, and that's why the
chest fitted.

I thought Ida was going to see a house
fairly well completed but very disorderly
grounds. Instead, she must have had quite

2 May 34

Dear Lynn

It was great seeing Ida. I really believe she liked everything. I tried to make her criticize it and make suggestions but she held out that she liked it.

I can let you know almostly exactly about the cost of a wall soon, be cause I am building about 60 feet five feet high in Garcia Street and keeping accurate account of it. There is a threatened drought here, and as it has not rained in months and as there was no snow last winter, I heard that the city might order the water to be reserved for domestic uses only. Last night the paper quoted the power company as holding that there was plenty of water, but the figures showed they had 3 cubic feet flow per second in normal times and 3/10 of one now, so I dont think that that is hot. Anyway, knowing that you want some building down when you arrive, whether at be wall or bedroom or dog run, I set a few men to work on adobes and we made a couple thousand at a cost of 14.00 per thousand. They are stacked and drying, and will be fine for whatever use you want to make of them. I paid 15.00 plus 5.50 for hauling las month when I built.

They take a lot of water to make; that is why I made them before water limit.

The carpenters finally departed, eased out by me. The press is perfect, even if it did cost a million dollars. You have 8 drawers nearly 30x30, 3 ten inch, 1 nine inch, 3 six inches, and 1 four inches. Then there is a 30x36 high door over the drawers and 3 30x30 shelves. Seven and a half feet of clothes rod, and a 16 inch shelf over it. 12 nickel plated clothes hangers. There was a piece of linoleum left over and I had them cement it to the closet floor, which is over the 2 10 inch drawers you know. everything has little wooden knobs like the chest you bought, and the 3 doors have wonderful locks and bolts. I beat the carpenters a little by buying the 2 doors for the closet. I raised the height to 6 feet, you had 5 feet on your plan, inclosed the vigas, and set 2 doors, of the 2 panel variety like the ones we have throughout. Making doors is almost settling down for the summer on the job.

Bernardino and I worked on the kitchen press all day. The refrigerator is painted like the kitchen walls, there is a 5 ft broom closet, 2 inclosed sections for dishes, and rows and rows of open spaces for pots and pans. I used as many of the large pieces I unpacked as possible to determine heights of shelves and distances. I like the things you bought. You could get any of those things here. The water heater was blazing today heating water for the man who was cleaning and scraping the windows. They measured for shaeds today too. Shaeds cost money so I did not buy anything for either kitchen or bath. If you want them later ou can get them.

Mrs Goodwin sent over 3 three lilac bushes, one 3 or 4 feet high. Her man planted them and they are superb. The one he said was best I set next to the front door. I took a lot of things from my garden and I have told everybody to bring things from their gardens. It takes so much to fill empty gaping ground. You will spend enough later on. Mrs chnaufer thought it would be nic to give you a kitchen shower, suggesting copper, but I toldher you had everything you needed and proposed perennials instead.

I think the garage will have to be on the Poniente side because the ground rises so high above the acequia that you will have to build a bridge to the gar ge if you build on the north. I showed Ida. On the Poneinte you can drive straight into the garage. I propose setting it exactly south of the placita, and using one placita wall for the north garage wall. A door could open into the side wall of the garage. It would cost less that way, and save a wall and bridge constr uction.

I talked with orman about I's land and he is off of a trade absolutely. He said he would have to quiet her title and that her land looked out upon those 2 Underwood atrocities and that he did not want her land anyway.

If you plan a placita to extend 60 feet along the Poniente from the southeast corner of the house, and if there is a garage south of the south wall appxly 12 feet wide, I will measure the rest of the land laying farther south and let you know what is left. You would sell it to her, if at all, upon a restriction that no windows or doors be cut in her north walls.

Anyway, your south walls would protect you.

The 2 peach trees are very responsive. They are green and luxuriant and there are teensy peaches on them. It is a joy to have them on your land.

I peeked in the top of the carton that contained what looked like a very ugly chair. Wood work and some sort of checked material. I don't know whether or not I'll let it in my house.

Yes, a typewriter desk with drawers on the side is lying on its back stilled wrapped in paper. Also a bookcase and a set of shallow shelves. The white unpainted chairs are here, very nice with rawhide seats. Are the blue cushions for them? Beautiful. And lovely linens with L R's all over things.

Lynn, the house is really very very nice. I like the portal the best, and when there are outlying walls and placitas and things, I know you will like it.

Davenport and Christine Hughes and the Schnaufers and the Goodwins and Mrs de Huff all called yesterday. They like it. de Huff said of the bath, Oh, a regular bilious yellow !

The color card goes west with this mail.

Ann.

3 May 34

lynn

Bernardino finished the kitchen press today and we unpacked the dishes and glasses and put them on the shelves. Sweet. Bernardino worked a day and a half at 5.00 a day, no, about a day and 3/4.

One other man is laboriously scratching paint and putty smears from the window and doors and retouching spots.

The closets and drawers are full of pillows and linens and blankets and tablecloths. The bath is so gay, it is the best room in the house, until one looks at the other rooms.

Mrs de Huff called today and said: How lovely everything is you did a wonderful job with everything will you come to dinner tomorrow night at seven we would love to have you tomorrow at seven I submitted a play in the Atalaya contest which would make a wonderful movie the plot is perfect for a movie only I dont know how to go about submitting it to the movie people I dont know where to begin Donald Clark is reading my play today and I asked him to come to dinner tomorrow night too.

Und so.

Ann.

May 5, 1934

Dear Ann:

Your letter of May 2:

Ida reported over the telephone how much she
liked the house, and a wire just came saying
she had arrived in New York and repeating her-
self by saying, "house in Santa Fe is lovely."

Yes, it's fine about the adobes (though not
so fine about the diminished water supply).
I shall certainly want something built, God
knows what at the moment. I still have to
make a couple of thousand dollars before I
can afford to live in the house for a while.
At the moment all my manager's deals about
me are in abeyance. Maybe the right picture
will happen along next week. He seems to think
it will, at any rate.

The million dollar press in the bath sounds
as if it would hold all my clothes, with
room left over for a couple of elephants.
I'm glad it has plenty of space in it.

From the different accounts you have sent me
from time to time of things that have been
planted, I'd built up an impression of a
green and tropical luxuriance. But GG tells
me that it takes thousands of plants to make
any impression at all. I think I've never
heard anything more ideal than to be showered with
perennials instead of copper.

It's funny about the garage business. I had
been playing with the notion of putting the
garage exactly in the place you mention. I'm
glad our ideas seem to coincide. If we put
it south of the placita, it will also serve
the purpose of shutting out things or neigh-
bors I don't want to look at. And, as you say,
it will cost less.

7 May 34

Lynnsky:

I have your letter with proposed wall. I'LL step it off tomorrow and
see what it looks like and put the distances in the map for you.

Saturday I stepped off the distance from the peach tree (no.1.) and
your south boundary. It was around 60 ft. If I were you I would do something
like this: Stake out the garage so that it lies exactly (not approximately)
east of the peach tree, and build it there. Then you would have a little
recess place for the tree, and you could build long seats and a stone table
or heavy timber table, out there. Then I would connect the n.e. corner of the
garage with a wall, which carried on down the poniente and tuned west to the
new bath corner. Then I would start at the south-west corner of the garage and
and build a wall due west to your west boundary and follow that due north to
the acequia, where I would end with a little fair pilar, or stepped down turn.

There would be a south lot left, maybe 50 feet wide by the width of
your lot long. And there would be a peach tree on it, worth as much as the land.
The lot would be open on 2 sides, along the poniente and on the south side
by the dormain proposed street.

G G is so right about the plants. I have planted and planted and there
are vast areas of dirt with hardly a leaf in sight. Ruth Barker said she had
lots of things she would dig up for you. And Gina's mama which is truly noble
because she lives in a rented house.

Lorman telephoned that the suit to quiet was over and that now your title
is quiet. There is still a sewer assessment matter to be settled because the
city council assessed Lorman and Pem twice on frontage. Pem told me she had to pay
for the 98 feet she owns, and Lorman is trying to have the same assessment
removed from his record. He asked me to come in and write the deed, and I will
do so. soon, when the balance you owe him will be payable. 750.00 less 75.00
will be 675.00.

Do you realize that your house stands on a really high hill, and that
there is a distinct drop from the building to the acequia. A lot of common shrubs
such as California privet, which costs a few dollars by the hundred plants, would
look well irregularly planted on the slope, which is rough and rather ugly.

A contractor called Harkins built a hollow tile studio for George Blodgett
back of Hal Bynner's house. He has a large studio, 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, but
merely empty bathrooms, as the bathing arrangements are drains in the cement
floors, not even a cement ridge to hold the water back. There is no kitchen
but a stove and refrigerator set in the studio wall. It cost six thousand and
five hundred dollars. I shall be interested in your seeing it.

Madeleine Galt asked how much your cost and I told her that that was for
you to say, if any, and then she said, well, will you tell me if it was less
than five thousand, and I said yes, it was less than five thousand.

Henrietta Harris who sews very neatly is going to make the curtains for
you. The manuscript business is not flourishing.

I think, going back to the map, that we have enough adobes for the walls a
and garage.

I'll see Raymie

May 7, 1934

Dear Ann:

Your letter of May 3rd:

I'm glad the bath is a great success. Before
I forget it - I haven't had a chance to try to
find a black bath curatin. So, if you haven't
sent the other one back, just keep it. If
I want to change it later, I'll get one in
Chicago. However, if it's gone back already,
it's all right.

I'm sending you a floor plan I made of the
house, which I used in estimating about the
size of tables, chairs, etc. I imagine my
windows and doors are not in exactly the right
position. But I'd like to know, some time
when you get round to it, if everything will
go in the studio, more or less as I have drawn
it here.

I've changed the work table and put it under
that window. I think the light will be better
there, and also it won't be so crowded on that
side. The daybed I will have to have made
later. The round circles on tables are lamps.
One lamp of mine, by the way, is at Donald
Clark's. Also, I left a blanket with him.
Would you be so kind as to ask him to let you
have them for the house some time before I
arrive?

The strip of wood showing colors hasn't arrived
yet, but I imagine it will in a day or so.

My plans are still uncertain, alas.

I imagine I'll want either to stain or to paint
the tables after I arrive and see what kind of
colors would be most satisfactory.

Greetings.

As ever,

May 10, 1934

Dear Ann:

I don't know what's got into the post office system out here. At least a week ago you said the color strip was going with that mail. It hasn't arrived yet. I don't understand it. Another important letter of mine (besides your own) from Northwestern University never reached me.

I'm sending you one of those innumerable drawings of mine. I like your idea about the wall and the garage and the peach tree very much. Please look at this map and let me know if there's room enough not only to make the garage 20 ft. by 14 ft., but to set it in from my Poniente line about 3 ft.

The point is, unless the gods crash through pretty soon, I'm not going to be able to build the garage just now, but I may manage to scrape enough together to do the wall. That's why I've drawn a line here which shuts the garage out of the enclosure. It would just be waste to run a wall across the place where the garage entrance is to be.

Would you please, when you get round to it, check the figures on this map, and estimate the cost of such a wall?

I should want the 18 ft. wall springing from the living room to have a concrete base. I should want a concrete base for the 20 ft. side and the 14 ft. end of the garage as indicated. I should want a concrete base for the 10 ft. wall at the west end of the portal.

This makes a total concrete base of approximately 77 ft.

I've got to have a closed-in space, so that's the reason I've cut off the wall the quickest way on the west. Please let me know what you think of all this. I much prefer to do without

-2-

a library and bedroom and garage to doing
without a wall.

Of course, we needn't do anything about
wall, garage, or bedroom until I come. And
it's easily possible that I'll have money enough
to do at least two of them. I'm just trying
to make plans for being penurious.

I'm enclosing a check for $675.00, so that
the lot can be paid for as soon as everything
is clear.

What time of year would California Privet
have to be planted? Now?

That's very entertaining about the Blodgett
studio. I'm going to be in a quandary when
people ask me how much my place cost. I'll
want to make it low - which it is - just to
show what a marvellous builder Ann Webster is.
But I don't like to have the exact figures
bruited about. I might want to sell it at
a high figure to keep myself from starvation
some day.

I'm delighted that Henri is going to do the
curtains. Did Ida tell you how I wanted them
made? Especially I want the big studio window
to go within an inch of the floor. Also,
I'm leaving it to your best judgment whether
to use the right side or the wrong side of
the curtain material. Both are good.

I don't see how it's possible that the money
has held out so long. Let me know.

I guess this is all. I don't know what I can
do about missing mail except complain. But
I don't think I'd get much satisfaction if
I did.

Greetings and luck.

P.S. How do you like the floor furnace? Or
has it come yet?

May 17, 1934

Dear Ann:

I've agreed to do a picture for MGM and, as I told
you in a telegram, the money is pouring in like
a river, at the moment (and like the rivers of
New Mexico, it stops with a bang when the cloud
burst is over).

I may have only a few days in Santa Fe along
toward the middle of the month. I've told them
here definitely that I have only three weeks which,
if necessary, I would stretch to four weeks. This
means I have given MGM a closing notice of June
15th. It's quite possible, of course, that I may
not see my way clear to getting the proper story
out of the picture I'm doing, and will feel like
throwing up the sponge. But so far it goes very
well.

The point I'm laboriously arriving at is this:
certain parts of the wall to surround the Riggs
estate we are all agreed on. I'm wondering if
you'd like to go ahead and do the sections which
will have to be done eventually anyway. For
instance, I positively will want the 18 ft. wall
with its concrete foundation springing from the
living room at right angles, and making a future
library - hallway five ft. wide. Then I'll want
a less-solidly built wall to join the end of the
18 ft. wall over to the Poniente, joining it at
a right angle, and continuing south along the
Poniente, approximately 50 ft. (depending on where
we decide to put the garage). Then I'll need a
wall beginning at the little wing you have made
on the left end of the portal, as we face it, and
going west so that it joins my western boundary at
right angles, and continues south along the iso-

25 may 34

If you care to, that long south lot could be sold for 500.00 I feel quite sure. It is really awfully nice and has a good peach tree well placed.

A box of wineglasses came.

You asked for heavy cement foundations: I have been successful in tur ing walls into rooms this way:

Cross section of wall.

----------adobes.

6" cement base added later to rest joists or

ground level.

rock
founda-
tion.

Having proved this satisfactory, I am building your wall with a rock foundation and without cement, it is going up at very low cost.

Also, I am putting a gate in the section of wall that runs out west from the west portal wall, and which will be accessible from the front, west side. I am putting no gates on the Poniente, as there will be a door later into the garage.

The account is taking out and will be along.

Ann

Lynn, I have the east wall started. We went out 18 feet at rightangles to the house, and then we went 14 feet at r.a.to the Poniente.

Then we went down to the south 50 feet, and there we turned the corner slightly, to allow for the entr ce to the garage, and we stopped.

We had to make a slight turn on ending a wall anyway, it cannot be chopped off square.

On the west we have staked out the same kind of a deal. we shall not make a straight line from the west wall to the house because that wall would then be at funny angles when we proce ded to build the west bedroom. So we went in the same direction as we did on the east.

Yesterday Dorman came over and we tramped over the west and north lines looking for the new corner. We could not find it and I requested him to send a surveyor out to set a new corner. He will.

He said the law suit and the sewer tax cost so much that when your lot was settled for he would be owing money. Then he looked all over the place and he said, You got the cream of this tract. I admitted it.

Then he said, You jump too quick. I did not realize that you were closing, I could not keep up with you.

Then he added, I shouod have gotten two thousand for this corner.

I made other measurements today.

After you leave the end of the wall on the east, and take off 14 feet for the width of the garage, it is 50 feet further to the corner of the lot.

26 May 34

2

Manuel Apadoca made us some lovely twisted iron rods and
hooks for curtain rods. H Harris made the curtains.
The material was nice before being made up but the
finished curtains are elegant. H H made them by hand, not
by machine, and they are ravishing. The big studio
window and the 2 south windows are long to the floor,
and the double and single are just below the sash. The
material measured to the last thread this way, not a
speck left over. The studios are full width and all the
others are split in half.

Ruth Barker gave us so many iris plants and shasta daisies
that I had to send a truck to get them. Tell GG you can
actually see green in the garden now.

A

May 29, 1954

Dear Ann:

I'm delighted that the wall is going up.

I have my mind finally made up about something. If the west line is straightened out by this time, go right ahead with the wall down the west side clear to the end of my lot, make that funny little turn where the concrete curved piece is, turn east and go right on to the Poniente corner, follow the Poniente line on up, stopping so as to leave a hole for a future garage which must be 14 ft. wide inside.

In the south wall put me in a double gate, so that a wagon, bearing wood or dirt or what have you, can drive in, and make it solid so that one would have to work awfully hard to see through it or under it or over it.

This is really final this time. I'd ask you to go ahead with the garage but I have ideas about the kind of door, etc., which I'd like to talk over with you first. We can decide all about it when I come, and while I'm gone to Chicago, if your workmen are not all tired out by that time, we can do the garage.

I enclose another drawing. I couldn't tell from your letter exactly what kind of angles the wall leaving the west side of the portal made - so I've guessed at it. It's probably wrong but whatever you do or have done is swell. I'm delighted about the gate there, incidentally. I had an afterthought to that effect - but I'm glad you anticipated it.

Please thank Ruth Barker for me. I'll do it myself in person before many weeks.

I'm working very hard for a change - and I find I'd rather loaf!

-2-

Thank Henri for the beautiful curtains. They sound ravishing indeed. You didn't mention the French door. I intended to put the same material there. Please answer this at once: shall I get more of the same material to cover the French door or not? If so, how much?

I'm not going to sell that south piece of lot for $500.00 or any price - not just this moment. Next summer - if the water situation is clear again - perhaps I'll have fruit trees there, or perhaps I'll have a tiny guest house, or perhaps - what are your ideas on the subject?

If you need money, let me know.

Greetings,

P.S. Plant that privet you suggested in front, if you want to - and if there's enough water to keep it going.

2. P.S. If it seems necessary, please buy me as many loads of pretty good dirt as are necessary to fill in the strip where the adobe dirt was taken out.

3. P.S. I know you are going to need money - if you don't right now. Just to keep the figures round, here is a cheque for $172.00 to add to the $1328.00, building fund already sent - total $1500.00.

4. P.S. Should some provision be made in the south wall, or outside it, so that if that field is irrigated the water won't undermine my wall? Or should we provide a culvert with a net over it, so that if I get some water rights myself I can turn some into my south lot some time?

you need have no fears about their being tired.

We will go on with the wall making allowance for draining the ground.

It is already fin shed on the east side, ending with quite a flourish where it turns the corner slightly, to enter the garage.

Interrupted: June 3.

It is also well up on the west side by this time.

Be sure to give me a few days warning before you
come so that I may have a man clean everything thor-
oughly inside.

Where was a terrific rain storm with 2 inches fall
and it washed a lot of dirt plaster from our northside,
and decorated the nice clean windows. BUT THE ROOF
DID NOT LEAK.

Houses are being broken into regularly around here,
and mostly they steal bedding. I had a nice clean
young american boy sleeping in your house 3 or 4
weeks, but now I have decide to take out about

200.00 burglar insurance which will cover what
burglard will carry away, if any, and the premium will
not be much. Maybe a couple of dollars; until you
return and do as you like in the matter.

Things are not safe left alone.

Greetings

nn

Did I ever repe at the request (from the lost letters)
that you buy a wrought iron lantern of some sort for
the front door, and the same if you like, or tin,
for the portal door.

that did those...
419 JUDICIARY SQUARE

searsroebuck knock-down chairs cost?

1 June 34

Dear Lynn: I have your check for 173.00 which squares out 1500.00.

Today I had a meeting with Seth who is drawing Lorman's
deed to you. We went into that sewer assessment matter
and found out that Lorman owed about 400.00 sewer
taxes and so I said I would not pay for the lot until
he at least cleared your piece of land. This he
agreed to do by asking the city engineer to draw a
release allocating your portion of the whole assessment
and then having the court approve it. Then your lot will
be free and clean of everything.

In the meantime I banked your check and will have to
write a check of my own, as I did not want to have
your california account tied up with outstanding
checks too long.

Seth was too busy to act, Lorman said, and I jumped
him hard and then we had the meeting this morning.

But as I wrote you, there never was any danger.

Seth filed the decree in the suit to quiet title,
and that now becomes part of your title.

Now the abstract company will bring the abstract to date, and then Lorman will give us the deed and the abstract. All these matters are at HIS expense, not our All we have to do is to file the deed when we get it, which will cost 1.50.

You will remember that I asked Seth to read your
abstract before we bought. There will be a small fee for
this. But beside being the best lawyer in town he is al
so the most reasonable so dont worry.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Now as to your letter: The men grin from ear to ear

when I tell them we are going to do more work. So

Ann Webster

Santa Fe

22 October 34

Dear Lynn:

I have been spending money like a drunken sailor but not realizing how it was going, when the wretched plumber presented me with a bill that took my breath away. I murmured that I would look it over and when he had departed I telephoned the bank. The bookkeeper reported that my balance was 40.00. The plumber was asking for 650.00.

Panic striken I wrote to everybody I knew and you were a peach to come across so quickly. Now my credit is restored and I am an honest woman again. I had let ever so much money just slide along, I am such a poor collector.

Todocio is watering every da consistently. I gave him 5.00 on account and told him to get the rest from you when you returned. It is not much.

The tenants' name is Trigo. They adore the house and they are from Chicago and they are on a honeymoon. They asked if they could see me and talk about building a new house for themselves, they like it so much here. Also they asked if I thought you would consent to their staying until Nov. 13, so that they could attend the Jemez dance before they departed.

So, if you want to remain away that long, they will stay on at the rate of 40.00.

I am quite sure that we can go ahead with a garage without disturbing anyone. The tenants have two cars, at least there have been 2 standing around, so they would probably welcome a garage.

If you want 3 simple walls and a dirt floor and simple doors, we can build it for 100.00 or so. If you want a lot of gewgaws, it can cost any amount. Did you look at Hal's and at Daniel's ? Send the plans you havein mind and I will estimate.

A woman came here from Chicago and bought an acre of land from Dr Mera, directly west of John Meem's house. Mere said he would waive the 10,000.00 minimum restriction on the lot. But when he was ready to assign he said, I meant I would waive the building restriction on condition John Meem build the house. There are a lot of so-called builders around this town but I dont want their stuff around Sunmount. Meem is the only person I would trust to build a house under 10,000.00.

The woman backed out of the deal, and then Mera signed the deed.

When she went o get it from Dorman, "there sat a man whom Dorman introduced as his soninlaw, "who will be of great help to you in building."

P.S. I broke ground for adobes today.

I am sending back the note. Dont tell creditors to tear up notes. We are not all as honest as you.

Yrs,
Ann.

October 23, 1934

Dear Ann:

I have just measured my car, which isn't a terrifically long one. It's exactly 16 feet long. This means that the garage must positively be at least 18 feet inside. I don't know whether we can get it in the position we have the garage planned without running too far into the peach tree. I don't want to ruin the peach tree.

Perhaps we'd better push the garage back, after all, toward the south of the lot, so as to miss the peach tree. If the whole garage were planned just about by the side of the present plan on the south, it probably would be better.

Of course, we'd have to straighten out the wall and the run-in already made, and make some new ones. I don't imagine that would cost a fortune, do you?

Anyway, a garage is no good to me if I can't get my car in, or if renters can't get a long car in it. Ideally, the inside ought to be 20 feet long and 14 feet wide.

I'd like a small barred window, and a door in the north side. The rest I leave to you. See the enclosed plan. What do you think? And please give me an estimate on it so I'll know if I can afford it or not.

Greetings and everything,

The Montecito,
6650 Franklin,
Hollywood, Calif.

October 25, 1934

Dear Ann:

I haven't heard from you yet as to whether you received
the check, and whether it was right or not. I forgot
about interest, also. Please let me know about it.

Have you had a chance to see whether the people would
mind my garage going up or not? Also, do you approve
of my suggestion of pushing it farther south a few
feet?

How much do you figure it will cost. Can we do it
for $150.00?

Anyway, here's - to me - the big news: go ahead with
the garage, if you will - and if the people don't
mind. The filthy gold is in the bank now, however
much you need to start on. Also - I'll have that
bedroom any time you can do it for me. I realize
the tenants wouldn't want that done while they are
there, most likely. But I'd be mighty elated -
weather permitting - if you'd start it the day they
move out on the end of their month (is that November
8th?).

Here is a plan of the room we talked about. I've
added a storeroom which I'll keep locked most of the
time - and when I'm gone on my jaunts east and west
and the house is rented, the storeroom will hold all
the things I don't want left in the house.

Please let me know at once whether another $100.00
on your tentative estimate of $350.00 for the bedroom
will take care of the extra storeroom.

I ought to thank God for the pictures. Sammie
Goldwyn is supplying me a place to sleep!

Take a moment off from your Garcia excitements and
let me know something quick.

Regards.

As ever,

P.S. Ann, you remember my wanting to do something for
the workmen? If you have time, will you please find
out what tools each one is most in need of, buy them,
and if possible, have their names stamped on them,
and present them to the workmen (was it four or five -
or what?, with my compliments. Then, present the bill
to me.

2 P.S. If you start the garage right away, please fix
the wall where the vandals got at it.

October 25, 1934

Notes on Bedroom.

1. The storeroom should be a step higher than the floor of the bedroom, so that by hanging a blanket on something like that over the space there, the storeroom entrance is entirely concealed.

2. I'll send suggestions about the electric light outlets in a few days, as soon as I hear from you.

3. I have put the French door so far south so that I get morning light as early as possible, and also so that I can peer from the bed into a little section of the garden as well as the portal.

4. I have changed my mind about the little window. I'd rather have the bed completely free of windows, there being nothing to see out them, particularly. I might possibly have a very tiny little window in the west wall - but I'm not sure. What do you think?

3

October 25, 1934

Dear Ann:

Your letter just came while I was finishing
writing the other one.

I'm glad the money came in handy. I see I owe
three cents. I knew I'd make money on the deal
somehow.

I think I'm not going to get away from here as
early in November as I thought. Could the
Trigos stay on without my saying definitely
yet whether I can let the house go till then? Nov 13, 7
I'll let them know the minute I know myself.

Also, there is this: if we are to get the bedroom
up and ready for occupancy before the weather is
too bad, we ought to start the bedroom as early
as possible. I should hate to wait until the
13th if we can start it a week earlier.

The garage can be simple, just so it has doors
that work and that are wide enough on account
of the narrow street I have to get in from.
You will have had by now my letter suggesting
knocking down your beautiful in-turn and putting
it about 10 feet farther south. I suppose
you'll have a fit. Please let me know whether
it's a serious one.

So, you're doing the house for the woman you
brought to see my house? Swell. She's lucky.

Yours as ever,

November 7, 1934

Dear Ann,

I hope you weren't annoyed at my impatience. I am so anxious to have that bedroom and garage and I had to do so much budget manipulation and start buying a few odds and ends that I really had to know what was happening.

I'm building the additions on a very narrow budget. I haven't heard yet whether you think you can do the bedroom for around $400.00. Anyway, I'll be back next week and we can see where we are.

Please go as cheap on the garage as you can. Plan it so that if I want to add improvements later - such as paved floor, etc. - it can be done when I'm richer.

I hope you like the bedroom plan. If you decide to put a window in the west wall by the bed, make it very, very small - in fact, no larger than this sheet of paper.

Do my colors seem all right?

The dressing table plan I sent will make the room a better bet when I rent it to women. It will also allow me to shave in great splendour with my electric razor!

I expect to leave here Tuesday. Dorothy Belle Hughes is trying to arrange for a boy to come out on the bus Saturday morning. If everything gets arranged, I shall probably turn up there Wednesday night or Thursday morning, November 14 or 15.

Oh yes, before I forget it. Make the two nichos by the head of the bed at least 8 inches lower than the one in the living room which is a little too high for the bed lamp.

Greetings! See you next week.

As ever,

April 24, 1941

Editor,
New York Times,
New York, N.Y.

Sir:

On February 20 Lynn Riggs read *Cream in the Well* to a group of twelve of us in Santa Fe, one month after its Broadway premiere. We had read Mr. Atkinson's criticism in the *Times* in which he asked why it was written, pointed out that nothing happened, and said that the subject of incest at the end came as anti-climax.

Heretofore we have all held that the dramatic section of the *Times* was the most important current comment on the drama in America and that Mr. Atkinson was the leading commentator. After hearing the Riggs play read and rereading Mr. Atkinson's criticism of it, we have wondered how Mr. Atkinson, or we, could have gone so far astray. To us it is so obvious that the play is a picture of the world today, that Mr. Riggs elected to use terms of simple human beings and purposely avoided terms of world-wide affairs, that it seems elemental to point it out, as the answer to any question of why the play was written.

We feel that he shows throughout the play the effect of destructive forces in man, accumulating and using his entire being until at last there is no strength left and no vision left to see or use the creative forces. His characters show that destruction and hatred will finally overwhelm and destroy every capacity for creation, as destruction and hatred must do. Julie illustrates, in her endless passion to tear down, that destructive forces cannot stand still, and that their final result is self-destruction. "Hate will strike you blind," says the mother. Julie says, "You see me as something -- a snake coiled up, waiting a chance to strike. It's myself the poison reaches."

In the second act Clabe says to Julie, "We were born... with some good in us, the power to do good in the world. And instead we've been killing each other, killing ourselves. The record piles up -- viciousness multiplied and multiplied -- till no good is left in either of us -- nothing but hate and death and disgust and more hate."

As Mr. Riggs has drawn Julie she could have been almost everything, but she gives all her attention to destructive elements, she is not able to deal with the constructive.

2

It is Mr. Atkinson's opinion that incest is sug-
gested and later enters the play as anti-climax, which
seems to us to be the most astonishing part of his
criticism. Incest is obvious by innuendo during the
play and bursts forth at the end in a staggering cli-
max, as the frightful thing that it takes to
destroy everything else that is frightful. If Mr.
Riggs had brought in something easy for Julie to do
as an expression of her creative life force,
then there would have been no dramatic problem,
Dating the play in 1906 when Oklahoma's statehood
hung in the balance, seems deliberate, because the
world is going to be a state or it is not.

We all saw and felt these things. We do not under-
stand how a critic could miss everything that the
play portrays. To us *Cream in the Well* has the
proportions of a Greek tragedy. It is a great play.

We endorse the suggestion of Doris Webster, pub-
lished recently in the *Times*, that an adverse
criticism by Mr. Atkinson be accompanied by a dis-
senting opinion, if there is one, or as some one
else has proposed, that all critical comment on a
new play be withheld for a period of two weeks, so
that the public may then be prepared to dissent if
it does not agree with the critics.

Yours very truly,

Santa Fe, N.M.

ANN WEBSTER SANTA FE NEW MEXICO

29 Sept 41.

Dear Lynn:

The newspaper story was awfully nice and friendly, and it pleased me to realize that you were working in such sympathetic surroundings. Here we miss you like everything. I see quite a lot of Ida when she isn't slinging adobes around and we speak of you a lot.

I assume that you have seen these things in the Times of Sept 21 but I am sending them anyway. I hope that CREAM and the other things will be published soon, I would like to have them. I have just mailed the Waco story to Calla who said that she would love to have it. I'll send youwhat comes of it.

Doriane and John went to Denver Wednesday. Through the Wooley they got to one Dr Boatman who mm Xrayed John and said that his nose should be operated upon. Doriane who loves nothing better than dragging poor John to doctor shops rushed to Denver immediately.

They put their boxes in storage and I hope that that is the last of Mrs Webster but my luck usually does not run in that direction.

In the Times mentioned above there was also a blast at American-Japanese negotiations about 4 columns wide on the editorial page by Lin Yutang. It is a relief to have the Chinese burst out with what they think after the way we pacify Japan and let them down. One of his statements was that he had renounced "Christianity".

Even the pro-New Deal foreign policy Merrygoround came out against Britain last week, saying that the greatest blunder of 1941 was her refusing to attack Hitler while he is going against Russia. I cannot help but believe that this is understood, for we all know that she hates communism more than she hates Hitler.

A Russian refugee is painting in No. 20 now, funny watercolors, and a Britisher with two babies is in No 2, escaped from Iraq, just ahead of the Arab uprising. With Mrs Ballin we have our full quota of them, even though the 2 Petainites departed. I really think that the lack of Petain sympathy Doriane found here was at the bottom of disturbance. Note the inclosure from Merrygoround. Before Doriane came here she referred several times in letters to the Hungarian consul's family as being lovely friends of hers. On Apl. 12 she wrote that they would occupy a bax given her by Burton Holmes, adding, "They have lived in Geneva 10 years, he being consul there. They are on the right side!"

So. Am or am I not right about letters from the Fr.consul in Chgo answer yes or no.

Much love Ann.

16 Oct 41.

Dear lin:

I write this way because I am having so much correspondence with the Chinese Embassy in Wash. that I think in these terms now. It seems that there is a little girl whp is the dau ghter of Dr Lim of China, who is in charge of all the public health work during the war. The Ambassador has asked me if I would be interested in educating her here, in USA, and I believe that I am. So now we are writing furiously to school and colleges about the little Lim and to date we have a 1/2 reduced scholarship at Shipley and a free 4 year course at Bryn Mawr. But even 1/2 is not free for nothing and I am scheming to nip it off here and there, if it goes through on my budget.

That is, I am interested in securing the education she needs, but she is not what I had in mind when I went after scholars. I still want ORPHANS, those who have lost everything, and who have NO prospects at all excepting what falls from the sky. But Lin, it is terribly amusing to see the effect the ambassadorial proposal has upon our democratic friends. Whereas everyone thought the orphan idea lovely, etc., now they are bidding their heads off to get hold of a distinguished doctor's daughter ! Gosh we do behave like human beings.

The reluctant sturgeon discharged all the workers. Then she got into a taxi, no hat, hair flying, face red, blood pressure higher and higher, and came after me. Not at home. The Ballin told her where I was and over she flew bursting into a house and crying "Ann come and get me some workers, etc., etc., etc." We went after Bernardino. Working but home the next week. That night she met him at my house and engaged him.

The next day she called saying she had given the contract to Bell and that he would do everything. Berna rdino out.

That coocoo girl.

I see Ida more and more and I like her more and more, even though coocoo. I had a fatherly talk with her and I told her that when she had men working she HAD to leave them alo ne!

Much love,

Ann.

BAYLOR THEATER
CIVIC THEATER

WACO, TEXAS

OFFICE OF
PAUL BAKER, DIRECTOR

October 21, 1941

Dear Ann,

Chelsea Storage has just sent me this bill
of lading.

I don't know what Judson Freight is, but guess it
is overland by motor.

They seem to have sent it collect. Would you
please receive it and let me know how much it is.

Everything goes well enough. I'm going up to Ft. Worth Friday to speak at the Texas Institute of Letters and then on to Dallas on Saturday, just to look around. This will be my first week- and venture--and no doubt the last! We have been rehearsing Macbeth week-ends too. And tonight I hold first tryouts for Borned in Texas.

So you see........

Your note on the Petainites was amusing and in-
structive. Such goings on!

I've just licked a cold, and I'm already to start
swimming again.

Ida's performance was like the usual: colorful--
and maddening.

Much love,