Monte Verde Villa is Santa Fe's finest offer for world-class accommodations. A private resort with a personal scope; a staff of 3 includes an onsite housekeeper, maintenance person, and groundskeeper, for the 26,000 sqft, 6 bedroom layout. The Villa features several living spaces, galleries, abundant kitchen areas, and a wine room with dual temperature zones. Additionally, the pool and hot tubs are a favorite as are the game rooms and terraces.
Befitting this high-desert terrain originally settled by the ancient Pueblo people called the Anasazi—known for the dwellings they carved into cliffs—the lower half of the house is buried in a hillside, its presence made even more inconspicuous by a series of landscaped roofs.
In recent years, the environmental movement has given rise to an evolving design aesthetic composed of hundreds of clevernesses. In many ways, this crème de la crème of eco-residences is an elegant disappearing act: Its chameleon-esque attributes include roof gardens irrigated by rainwater, a gray-water system that filters and recirculates water from showers and sinks to underground cisterns, and, tucked between trees on a terraced hillside, solar panels that heat the house's radiant floors and swimming pool. Drought-tolerant native plants are in abundance, while artificial turf laid over recycled tires provides a swath of green where children can play. Rock excavated from the site was crushed in place and used for gravel, and boulders were kept for landscaping.