In the late 1940s, my parents bought this house from my Great-grandmother, Marietta Renehan for $8,000.  We lived there until 1955 and I spent my early years roaming the hills above La Vereda.  I have always wondered about its origin, and the only thing I've found is that it may have been the main building of the Fischer Brewery.  I don't believe this to be the case, since the house is above and behind the brewery site and does not appear on city maps until after the brewery was demolished in 1906.  I asked my mom about it, and she said that she had heard that it was built by an old Italian stonemason who had worked on the Cathedral.  He also built all of the original stone walls on La Vereda and had built a second stone house somewhere in Santa Fe.  Since the Cathedral was completed in 1889, it is conceivable that the house could have been built by "an old Italian stonemason" after the brewery was gone.

I recently found the obituary of Joseph Anthony Berardinelli, Jr. which included the following:

"Joseph was a descendent of one of the oldest and best known Italian families in Santa Fe. Joseph's Great Grandfather, Gaetano Palladino, and his wife, Filomena Digneo Palladino, arrived in Santa Fe in 1877 where Gaetano and his nephew, Vicente Digneo, resumed stone masonry work on the Basilica Cathedral of Saint Francis at the request of Archbishop Jean Baptiste Lamy after the departure of his French stone mason, Antoine Mauly. They were later joined by Joseph's Grandfather, Michele Berardinelli, who married Gaetano's eldest daughter, Guilia Palladino Berardinelli. Michele and Guilia had eight children, Margarita (Maggie), Peter, Edward, Federico, Sophia, Annie, Michael had Joseph Berardinelli, Sr. The Palladino-Digneo-Berardinelli stone masonry firm prospered after completion of the Basilica Cathedral, going on to construct many New Mexico landmark buildings in the late 1890's and early 1900's. Among the many historic stone buildings worked on by Gaetano Palladino and Michele Berardinelli were the Archbishop's burial crypts under the high altar at the Basilica Cathedral, the Catron Block occupying the Northeast corner of the Santa Fe Plaza, Santa Fe's Guadalupe Church, the original dam in the Santa Fe water shed canyon, Hodgin Hall, the first unit of the University of New Mexico, original buildings for the Normal School in Las Vegas (now Highlands University), original buildings for Socorro's School of Mines, the original Bernalillo County Courthouse, the ornate brownstone Nicholas T. Armijo building in Albuquerque, and many of the brick homes along South Don Gaspar Avenue which is designated on the historic 1900 King Survey as "the Berardinelli Addition." The historically designated "Michele Berardinelli Building," constructed by Michele as his residence in the 1890's, still stands at 644 Don Gaspar Avenue."

The Palladino-Digneo-Berardinelli stone masonry firm could have very well built this house and the original walls at La Vereda.

If anyone has any additional information about the house, please post.

Photo by Mike Lord

September, 2011