Santa Fe is a colorful, eclectic city that has been shaped over the decades by artists and eccentrics who found their way to this western crossroads of Spanish, Mexican and Native American culture. Designer Ira Seret arrived by way of Afghanistan, where he’d spent the late ‘60s and early ‘70s making his name exporting the first shaggy sheepskin coats that became haute-bohemian staples, helped start the craze for dhurrie rugs, and, with Angelo Donghia, worked with artisans to redesign Pakistani wedding tents for urban dwellers, celebrated in Vogue and Arch Digest. Little surprise, somehow, that Ira and his wife Sylvia opened their first shop, Seret & Sons, and in 1996 eventually a hotel, Seret’s 1001 Nights—later renamed Inn of the Five Graces—in downtown Santa Fe. All to say that the experience of staying in this beloved hotel today feels like a narration of the couple’s magic-carpet journeys along the Silk Road, and could honestly only be found in the fanciful folk-art mecca of “the city different.”
The Check In
The hotel occupies two historic adobe buildings on one of the city’s oldest streets, East de Vargas, a short walk from the Plaza. Ceramic elephants and flickering farolito lanterns beckon you into an intimate lobby with kilim-upholstered furniture, where check-in takes place over a glass of crisp sparkling Gruet from the New Mexico-based winery. Or, if your room isn’t ready, you might sit in the bosky back garden, sipping a margarita under a scalloped Indian parasol as a stone fountain splooshes you into a trance.
The Look
The Inn was originally imagined as a showcase for the Serets’ trove of antique furniture, textiles, carpets, and architectural elements gathered from countries in Central and South Asia with ancient folk-craft traditions. Maximalists at heart, the Serets have decorated every space in an eclectic mix of custom dhurrie- and kilim-covered furniture, Indonesian doors, painted Tibetan chests and colorful mosaic tiles, all wrapped up in a kind of Spanish-colonial, east-meets-west package. The kaleidoscopic, opulent effect informs the hotel’s name—the colors and cultural eclecticism being the feast for the five senses.
The Neighborhood
Set in the historic 17th-century Barrio de Analco, the most continuously inhabited neighborhood in the U.S., the inn is set back on a quiet street just off the Old Santa Fe Trail, the city’s former silk road equivalent, across from the San Miguel Mission, the oldest church in the United States. It’s also really well located between the Plaza area, with favorite restaurants like Café Pasquals (get the “Christmas” enchilada) and 35-year-old icon Coyote Café, and Canyon Road lined with esteemed art galleries. Santa Fe is a great walking city, so you may not even need a car during your time here.
The Rooms
Each of the 25 suites, split between the two buildings, is a riff on the Silk Road theme, with Suzani-covered headboards (and slipcovered TVs), dhurrie-and kilim-covered furniture, and hand-carved architectural antiques from Central Asia, India and Tibet—even the air vents are obscured by hand-carved Indonesian screens. The rooms are anchored with a cozy kiva fireplace that an attendant will come kindle with pinon and juniper in winter. But the show-stopping vision is the bathrooms, where Sylvia Seret has created elaborate, candy-colored mosaics from broken Indian and Mexican pottery of enchanting trees and flowers, star-studded skies and fish swimming in azure water that crawl across the walls and ceilings, with deep bathtubs from which to view these tableaux. Families or groups might consider the 3-bedroom Luminaria Villa with five fireplaces (inside and out) and hand-painted Tibetan ceilings.
The Food & Drink
There is so much good food to try in Santa Fe—from Southwestern to Spanish and Indian—and within such close range, that the hotel’s perfectly respectable restaurant, 315, won’t be a priority. That said, the breakfasts of blue cornmeal pancakes and huevos rancheros, with the city’s signature red or green sauce, are delicious. Happy hour in the charming garden is from 5:30 to 7:30.
The Check Out
Before leaving, try to get into the spa, which has five treatment rooms with sumptuous details in line with the rest of the place—lapis lazuli-inlaid ceilings from Afghanistan, 500-pound Brazilian crystals, Tibetan tapestries, golden Buddhas. (There’s also a gym and yoga studio, and, as of later this summer, a small pool.) And if you are coveting any of the rugs and textiles from the hotel, head over to Seret & Sons at 224 Galisteo Street, a huge gallery full of durries, Kazakhs and kilims, the largest collection in the world of antique furnishings from Tibet, semi-precious stone inlaid tables, carved fireplace mantles and bird cages.
