La Posada de Santa Fe Resort & Spa

A spacious resort with 157 rooms, La Posada offers good value in a central downtown location, especially for families traveling with children.

• The six acres of beautifully landscaped grounds, a rarity downtown
• The heated pool, especially when traveling with children
• The artwork – paintings and sculpture – on display and for sale

As the only property in downtown Santa Fe that occupies a significant amount of land– six acres of landscaped grounds, including a small pool area– La Posada is a good choice for families who want to let their kids roam without worrying about them disturbing other guests (as they would at the Inn of the Anasazi) or running into a major street (as they could at the Inn on the Alameda).

The 157-room Posada feels larger and more corporate compared to other intimate Santa Fe hotels: for instance, the four reception desks in the bustling Posada lobby can be jarring. But this historic property, centered around a whimsical Victorian mansion, is fascinating. The original owners, the Staab family, were Santa Fe trail merchants (one staffer described Mr. Staab as the Donald Trump of the Southwest) who built the three-story brick mansion, complete with French Empire-style embellishments, in 1882. Today, the Staab mansion, which connects to the reception area and La Posada’s restaurants, houses four hotel suites as well as interconnected drawing rooms and a lounge and bar where guests can enjoy afternoon tea or cocktails.

As a hotel, La Posada finds its roots in the city’s art scene: in the mid-1930s, the then owners built a series of Pueblo-style adobe casitas around the Staab mansion, which served as an artists’ colony for many years. Guests can still stay in these artisans’ casitas – lovingly dubbed “fat lumpies” because of the roundness of the classic adobe style. Most guest rooms, however, are located in newly rehabbed casitas, some of which are two stories, and all of which are scattered around the property.

Accommodations boast some nice local touches, including kiva fireplaces, exposed wooden ceiling beams and a well-edited selection of regional artwork. The latter can be found throughout the hotel in a vivid and colorful collection that is pure Santa Fe. La Posada is one of few downtown hotels with a (small) pool area, a welcome amenity for families traveling with kids. And the 4,500-square-foot spa, complete with steam rooms and a fitness center, is one of the largest in town (the jury is out, however, on whether these amenities warrant the daily resort charge La Posada tacks onto every bill).

The location of your room is key: it’s best to be on an upper floor and removed from the outdoor dining patio, which can get noisy (my room, Number 107, faced the patio, which meant that I could not escape the Mariachi band that performed until 10 P.M.). And if having a large bathroom is important to you, be sure to request one; each room has a different layout, and some bathrooms are tiny.

Families with kids will enjoy the lived-in, low-key ambience, and travelers who plan on doing a lot of sightseeing will appreciate having a centrally located base at a reasonable price point.