I’m looking for a quiet and responsible tenant or couple to move into my partially or fully furnished 2 bedroom Southern New Mexico home for a 5 month, 10 month, or 12 month lease starting late July or early August.

I’ve lived here for the last 5 years, but I took a job in New York that’s requiring me to move for work. After a year back and forth, I’m putting the place up for rent. I’ve poured my heart into this home and it is… unbelievably special.

The basics:
The house is a 2 bedroom adobe house with an office, cozy living room, warm kitchen, ridiculously big bathroom, spring, porches, pond, fruit trees, and external dining room. Part of the house is 150 years old!

The house has:
• A natural artesian spring that bubbles up in multiple places, including in a spring house that I use as a dining room, complete with goldfish and skylights
• Two woodburning stoves (one in the house, one in the spring house)
• A piano (slightly out of tune right now)
• Two outdoor fireplaces
• Multiple decks and patios
• A pond with fish and cattails
• Gas stove, microwave, tiny but powerful dishwasher, pantry
• Over a dozen kinds of producing fruit trees and vines (apples, pears, plums, peaches, pomegranates, persimmons, gogi berries, grapes, blackberries)
• Kitchen herbs (rosemary, oregano, sage, chives, hops)
• 50 acres of desert hills to walk on (backs up to BLM land for further wandering)
• Stars (A dark sky spot, very bright)
• Birds (they love the water and the trees, it’s a little oasis)
• A fancy matte Frame TV
• Rose bushes, willow trees and cottonwoods (including a 400 year old one)
• High speed internet (no, really! fiber!!)
• Wired speakers in every room of the house
• Ridiculously big tiled soaking tub
• Washer / Drier
• Comfy couches
• A literal belltower
• Barn for storage

Optional:
• Currently 4 ducks live in the pond outside. They’re very cute and low-maintenance (and you get free duck eggs, great for breakfast) but keeping them are not a required part of leasing the house if you are otherwise a good fit.
• My small library of fiction and nonfiction (scifi, art books, poetry)
• Dishes and cookware, linens, etc
• I’m also currently rehoming two sheep that have lived here the last few years. They can stay if you’ve always wanted to live with sheep.

You would be responsible for electric (varies, generally $100 - $150/month unless it’s very hot or cold), internet ($70~), and trash service ($50, unless you want to take it to the dump yourself). Electric would go into your name, but internet and trash could be paid to me with rent, or we could transfer service, either way. I will cover cooking gas (propane) and water. I’d be using part of the rent to pay for a gardener/maintenance person to come twice a month to care for trees, pipes, the pond, etc. They’d working in outdoor spaces only unless you invite them in to look at something inside.

The closest town to here is Truth or Consequences, which is roughly 15 minutes by car. Truth or Consequences (population 5000) is known for its hotsprings. There are roughly 15 different bathhouses available to soak in! There is also a local movie theatre, a brewery, a few nice restaurants, a bakery, a coffeeshop, a local grocery, a weekly farmer’s market, a bulk order food coop you can join for $30/year, and a Walmart. It’s a very quirky and pleasant place to live.

The closest working airports are Albuquerque and El Paso, both 2 hours away by car. There’s a bus once a day to Albuquerque, and a few regional transit options that you can piece together to El Paso, but both are really better as drives. Las Cruces, which is an hour south, is the closest spot for a “city day”– with late night coffeeshops, theaters, mall, natural food stores, university, etc etc.

Things about you:
• A car is required to live here. Being able to drive is a must.
• The desert is very peaceful, but also no joke at times (dust! snakes! hot! cold! altitude!)– being able to handle this is really critical.
• This is a country house, and while it’s very special, there’s some rough edges. Bugs, power flickers, the occasional wind-based internet outage… it comes with the territory.
• It can get lonely here– solitude should sound peaceful not scary
• There are days where eating out in town is hard (most things are closed Monday / Tuesday) – being able to cook or snack at home is important
• There’s a lot of space around, but it’s a working agricultural valley and sound carries. You might hear farm equipment or target practice at times.
• This is my home and I’m looking for someone who can give it the love I can’t right now. Please be clean and respectful, above all else.
• Pets are welcome (so are other farm animals!), but I’d like to discuss the individual animals– they may require a deposit or some cleaning fees.

I personally think this would be a perfect fit for someone on a sabbatical year– or with a book to write, an album to finish, a series to paint… I’m an artist and I’ve really set up the flow of the house to support calm, deliberate, creative work. But I’m open to all sorts of lives. Tell me about yourself.

And– in the unlikely event that you’d like to house trade for a year in Brooklyn, please don’t hesitate to message me. I teach at Pratt!

About This Lister

I'm an artist and professor. I've lived here for the past 5 years, first full-time and then for a year off and on. I've poured myself into this home and I think you can feel it.