107JohnM107
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There may be no more notable place to stay in Taos than the Mabel Lodge Luhan House which has hosted many famous folk in its storied history. That's because its longtime owner, a former New York City heiress, was the controversial Taos hostess |who drew a cast of artistic all-stars as her guests, from Greta Garbo to Georgia O'Keefe to Ansel Adams to Carl Jung.|This place even survived, after Mabel's death, a period when it was owned by Dennis Hopper who wrote the screenplay for "Easy Rider" in one of its rooms. Now, the Mabel Dodge Luhan House is a combo bed & breakfast and busy conference center that hosts many artistic seminars.|This place oozes history but what is it like as a guest today? We spent two nights in a spacious bedroom that is named for poet Robinson Jeffers and were pleased by these homey, if basic accommodations. No TV's, no alarm clocks or other electronic devices intrude here. The bathroom was tiny, almost like being on a train, but with a surprisingly strong shower. At night, the quiet was broken only by an occasional howl of coyotes on the adjacent Indian reservation.|Breakfasts for guests are stellar, cooked in the adjacent spacious kitchen, with many intriguing main course items, plenty of baked goodies, real oatmeal and fresh fruit. To eat such a morning repast on the adjacent patio was a delightful start to a September day of touring Taos.|The Mabel Dodge Luhan House could have merited four stars, but there are some definite drawbacks besides the basic accommodations. The parking lot is a good distance downhill from the lodge building, most of it covered by flagstones and cobblestones that turn wheeled suitcase transit into a quasi-Olympic event. Not fun, especially for senior travelers.|Returning to the lodge after dinner in downtown Taos provided another surprise. A speaker event adjacent to the parking lot meant that returning guests found the entire parking lot packed with other vehicles, necessitating a scramble to find anything approximating a vacant spot. Perhaps in the future some spots in the parking lot could always be reserved for lodge guests.|One sweet positive about the Mabel Dodge Luhan House also merits mention. The small office boasts a gift shop that includes books of history about this place and its owner as wells as books written by most of its illustrious guests. We picked up a copy of Willa Cather's "Death Comes to the Archbishop," a historical novel about New Mexico that we had been intending to purchase for some time. It seemed to mean more when it was bought at a place where the author had actually stayed.