Lodging: Tesuque

Linger a Little Longer

Tesuque, a village seven miles north of Santa Fe, has more trees, more water, more horses, and more ranches than most of the Santa Fe area, all of which makes it sort of the Malibu of New Mexico. The posh Encantado Resort and Spa fits right in.

Encantado Resort was formerly Rancho Encantado, but gone are the horses, cantina, and cowboy-booted founder Betty Egan of that popular destination. Here now are 65 lavish contemporary adobe-style casitas, each a spacious 630 to 1,000 square feet, with polished concrete floors, wood-burning kiva fireplaces, cowhide benches, and furnishings in cream and apricot. From private patios, you can relax with swaying aspens and birdcalls.

“We’ve got a modern take on the Southwest,” says general manager Martin Nicholson. “One can go in and partake of Santa Fe, and yet retire here in a shroud of serenity.”

As one might expect, serenity certainly pervades the spa, where I receive an aromatic Enchanted Facial that lives up to its name and more, by starting with a Naturopathica bourbon-vanilla foaming-milk foot bath and finishing with a shoulder massage with green tourmaline spheres reputed to drain negativity from mind and body.

I pop into a presentation on Georgia O’Keeffe in the Bar at Encantado. Hosted by Jackie M, director of education and public programs at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, the session is part of Encantado’s new customizable activity program, which celebrates the environs with outdoorsy trips to the Valles Caldera National Preserve and visits to nearby art studios.

Then I dive into Chef Charles Dale’s American cuisine menu at Terra restaurant, highlighted by the cheddar-scallion biscuits and Guajillo Prawns with mango salsa and white-chocolate mole. The topper? House-made churros with caramel sauce. Think: Southwestern gourmet cinnamon donut. Outside the luxuriously rustic stone-and-concrete dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows, the sky deepens into navy blue over the mountains.

Whether you call it Encantado Resort and Spa, or refer to it nostalgically as Rancho Encantado, it remains a soothing getaway tucked in the hills of Tesuque.—Wolf Schneider

Casitas from $450. 198 N.M.592, (505) 988-9955, www.encantadoresort.com