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Santa Fe is like going to Greece. It’s not that special compared to other areas. The pinon pines are no different than pinon pines elsewhere. But there has been culture there longer than in most places, and you feel it.”
Beautifully lit desert-to-mountain landscapes, authentic Western sets, and early adoption of production tax incentives have long made “Tamalewood,” as New Mexico has been dubbed, a favorite Hollywood backdrop. While Albuquerque boasts a Netflix production hub, Santa Fe continues to grow its infrastructure. Game of Thrones author Dark Winds wrapped its fourth season here, and Emilio Estevez has been scouting locations for Young Guns 3: Dead or Alive. The cultural draws and small-town feeling of The City Different have made it an epicenter for the stars. Beyond Martin, community heavyweights include Ali MacGraw, Wes Studi, Godfrey Reggio, Shirley MacLaine, Tommy Lee Jones, Cassidy Freeman and Dark Winds director Chris Eyre.
Here are some buzziest destinations in the land of red chile ristras.
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Where to Sleep
The vibrant tile mosaics and artisanal interior designs of husband-and-wife team Ira and Sylvia Seret are a feast for the senses at their 27-suite Seret & Sons, where The Edge and Laurence Fishburne have been spotted.
Norman Reedus cruised up to the Rosewood Inn of the Anasazi on his motorcycle and checked in for an entire month while filming the upcoming Mark Heyman film Pendulum. Jacki Weaver, Brian Grazer and Phoebe Dynevor have also stayed at the cozy Southwestern-style lodge. In June, the Dark Winds cast held a dinner party helmed by new executive chef Cristian Pontiggia, who serves up Italian-New Mexican fusion with arty flair.
A former dude ranch set on 57 acres that once drew Johnny Cash, Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, the now 65-casita Four Seasons Resort Rancho Encantado Santa Fe recently had a multimillion-dollar facelift. Melissa McCarthy and husband Ben Falcone booked a room while promoting their investment in locally bottled and blended Big Nose Kate whiskey. Jones likes to dine at Terra, now led by chef Gregory Joseph, with picturesque views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Where to Eat
Martin tells THR he likes to treat “visiting V.I.P.s” to dinner at Sazón, also favored by Eyre, where he leans into the Sopa de Amor (“love soup”) with cream of poblano, lump crabmeat, amaretto foam, and a dusting of cinnamon and chocolate by cowboy hat-donning chef Fernando Olea, followed by rack of lamb with a signature molé.
Cillian Murphy, Josh Brolin and Dynevor (with fiancé Cameron Fuller) bellied up at The Dragon Room (the bar inside The Pink Adobe restaurant). Prickly pear margaritas and Clams Lucifer with red chile-tequila broth are highlights.
MacLaine sips cosmos at the sunken bar at The Compound Restaurant, a local institution where Reedus, MacGraw and Freeman also dine. The former home was once part of the Macomb Compound, a retreat for names like Wayne, Georgia O’Keefe and Errol Flynn.
Reedus and Robert Knepper like to hang out at The Shed, a third-generation family restaurant housed in a 1692-era hacienda, where red or green chile enchiladas, pozole and watermelon margaritas are draws.
Zahn McClarnon’s favorite eatery is Ohori’s Coffee Roasters. “The ‘Shot in the Dark’ is my go-to every morning. Love the earthy, smoky taste of their coffee,” he says.
Dozens of the late Santa Fe resident Sibylle Szaggars Redford Fine Art, displaying a retrospective of her oil paintings and abstract watercolors created with monsoon rain.)
Where to Shop
During World War II, the space known as The Rainbow Man — which is now a store — served as a secret headquarters center for the Manhattan Project; scientists recruited to take part in the classified nuclear bomb program entered the front door and were whisked away through the back courtyard to unmarked cars that took them to Los Alamos. Christopher Nolan came by in the lead-up to Oppenheimer. The space has also been graced by Bruce Springsteen, Oprah, MacGraw and Redford for its artworks and sundry treasures, such as rare gold-tone Edward S. Curtis photos (Jerry Bruckheimer is a fan), antique Navajo concho belts and vintage Chimayo blankets.
Estevez reportedly asked whether the lavender soap at Los Poblanos Farm Shop Norte could cleanse the soul. This outpost of the Albuquerque historic inn and organic farm also produces small-batch botanical gin served in craft cocktails at adjoining Bar Norte.
Jessica Matten and Devery Jacobs frequent 4Kinship for hand-dyed, upcycled vintage designs by Amy Denet Deal, who styles the singer Jewel and supports Indigenous youth with a roving market and Diné Skate Garden Project in collaboration with Tony Hawk.
Julia Roberts popped in from her Taos ranch to snap up a chain-stitched Molyan jacket at High Noon General Store, where America Ferrera (while filming The Lost Bus) and Minka Kelly and Jack Schumacher (filming Ransom Canyon) also shop.
MacGraw and Joaquin Phoenix are repeat visitors to metaphysical bookstore The Ark, which peddles tomes on meditation, divination, astrology and holistic health alongside otherworldly jewelry, crystals and smudge bundles.
The 25,000-square-foot Double Take vintage emporium served as a location for Outer Range and a costume source for Oppenheimer and Dark Winds. Its Western wear is tapped by fashion stylists, while Miranda Lambert, Chris Stapleton with wife Morgane and Arcade Fire members have made recent appearances.
Some of Ben Foster’s costumes for upcoming Western comedy The Stalemate were pulled from vintage Western wear and boot store Kowboyz, as were pieces for Pendulum and Outer Range. McClarnon set aside four pairs of cowboy boots for Dark Winds costume designer Lahly Poore, while ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons picked up four Western shirts.
The costume design team for Opus scored a piece for John Malkovich at Desert Moss Vintage, a well-curated vintage trove tucked in an alley off Canyon Road. Freeman, Dynevor, Megan Mullally, Morningstar Angeline and Nick Offerman are fans.
Emmy-winning costume designer Cathy Smith and her jewelry designer daughter, Jennifer Jesse Smith (who sells versions of rings she made for Johnny Depp in The Lone Ranger), run Nambé Trading Post. Among the wares are antique Navajo blankets loaned to dress Dark Winds sets and warrior shields Smith hand-painted for Outer Range. On display are an array of film costumes that showcase her master beadwork and quillwork.
Recently mined by costume designers from Outer Range, Dark Winds, Love Lies Bleeding and HBO’s Duster, by-appointment Santa Fe Vintage showroom stocks All-American fashion (from motorcycle-ready and military to workwear and westernwear) ranging from the 1890s to the 1980s.
