Nuestra Senora de la Luz Church & Cemetery - Historic Santa Fe ...

Diary of an Old House
Excerpts from the Charlotte White Journals
Edited by Corinne P. Sze, Ph.D.
The Foundation is unusually fortunate that Charlotte White
began keeping a journal the day after she and Boris Gilbertson
arrived to begin working on their Alto Street property, and that she
faithfully continued to record its transformation from a crumbling
adobe to the elegant home it is today-a project that would absorb
much of the next two decades of their lives.
I have been working with Charlotte off and on for a couple of
years in an ongoing project to transcribe those portions of the journals
that relate to the house, including enough detail to follow the
thread of her life during those years. Because the journals contain
much mater-ial that is highly personal, they could not simply be
handed over to an editor to pick and choose at will from the contents.
So Charlotte first selected passages she wished to share and then we
recorded her reading those entries as well as her comments upon
them, which included explanations, expansions, and her present view
of past events. Rarely do we have such complete documentation of a
building project, a.ndeven more rarely the opportunity to relive the
past through the immediacy of a journal with one of its participants.
Charlotte records not only the daily details of adobe and vigas,
but gives us as well the emotions that surrounded this highly personal
project-her ever-deepening love of her new surroundings, so different
from her native Illinois; her pleasure in creating a garden where
there had been nothing but weeds and debris; her wonder at the
extremes of Santa Fe weather, always important to a gardener; and
her reactions to the inevitable frustrations of the enormous project
she and Boris had taken on. We follow too her growing realization of
the property's historical importance, which only deepens her attachment
to it.
Her main subject, however, is Boris Gilbertson-his talent, his
strength, his persistence, his moods. Professionally already a highly
regarded sculptor, he seems to have limitless ability to make real with
his hands his vision of the house and to place inordinate demands
upon himself in the quest for excellence. We also follow his career as
an artist in the Southwest, from early attempts to find a local gallery
to recognition in a wide regional area.
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