On The Turquoise Trail to La Capilla de San Ysidro Labrador In Santa Fe, New Mexico

A Secret Treasure in the City Different

New Mexico’s capital city, Santa Fe, is world famous for its rich history, museum-quality art, and signature ‘Santa Fe style’.

Additionally, visitors flock to the City Different to buy legit Native American jewelry.

They don their best ‘Southwest’ outfit and pursue enlightenment while navigating impossibly narrow roads in the reluctant metropolis that relies on tourism but rejects the concept of city planning.

Any visitor worth their salt will plan to see the Loretto Chapel, San Miguel Chapel, The Palace Of The Governors, La Fonda Hotel, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, and all the art galleries on Canyon Road just to get warmed up.

As for myself, I like to seek out the places where the tourists are not. Places that don’t sell Kokopelli incense burners or Pendleton blankets and where nothing is adorned with a howling coyote.

A Little Chapel on the Hill in Santa Fe, New Mexico

La Capilla de San Isidro Labrador had been on my bucket list for a long time. It is sometimes also known as Lopez Chapel or Cerro Gordo Chapel.

I had come across pictures of it online now and then and was immediately fascinated.

The only problem was a consistent lack of information.

Every photo I found of the Santa Fe chapel described it as being on a hillside at the outskirts.

If you’ve been to Santa Fe, you know that ‘on a hillside’ doesn’t narrow the list.

After a bit of crowd sourcing, I was eventually able to find the chapel located near 1154 Cerro Gordo Rd. in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Word to the wise, there is no parking, the chapel is surrounded by a barbed wire fence adorned with No Trespassing Signs and a surveillance camera and, on top of all that, the entrance is barricaded as well. Don’t get your hopes up about going inside.

     La Capilla de San Isidro Labrador was built in the early 1930’s by Lorenzo Lopez Sr. He dedicated the chapel to the patron saint of farmers, San Isidro. After Lorenzo Lopez died the chapel fell into a state of disrepair. I’m not sure how old the photo is, but check out this image on the Historic Santa Fe Foundation website. As you can see, there are hardly any trees and the chapel looks pretty rough.

In the 1990’s, Lorenzo’s grandson, Ramon Jose Lopez (who is also a highly acclaimed artist), raised funds to restore the chapel. It is said that, whenever possible, he used his grandfather’s original tools to complete the work.

These photos were originally published to the Dry Heat Blog on 08/23/2020.