Vaughn Dearing began his realtor career in 2001 with ReMax in California. He discovered Taos after his aunt, Chien Motto, moved to Lama in the 1970s and wed Doroteo Frank Samora, a spiritual leader …

Cohousing isn’t new to Taos. Long before Valverde Commons (VC), decades prior to the 1960s communes, the Red Willow community lived within the adobe walls of Taos Pueblo. Cohousing US (cohousing.org) defines cohousing as “community designed to foster connection.” This means shared governance, resources, socializing and spaces.

If anyone  has their  fingers  on the pulse of the local real estate market, it's Joel and Marny Schantz of top-performing Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Taos Real Estate. Active in the Taos Valley real estate commu­ nity for decades, the Schantzes have, they laughed, "sold the same houses over and over again."

Casa Mariposa in Des Montes is a dance of light and shadow. The mood of the home changes with the time of day and the seasons. This spectacular house was designed to echo the shape of a mountain on the ancient volcanic plain to the west. Pueblo and territorial architecture are captured and reinterpreted in a completely original way by world-renown architect Antoine Predock.

Robert Vander knows rugs. For nearly four decades Vander has been traveling between New Mexico and Asia, bringing a sweeping assortment of Oriental treasures to his retail location, Alhambra, where Chinese and Indian finds co-mingle with Nepalese altars and Tibetan-style artisan creations.

Ask people what rooms they love the most, and you’ll get answers ranging from favorite childhood hideouts to dreamhouse living rooms with fifty-mile views. But if you ask them why, they may not be able to explain that the first was an intimate refuge that made them feel safe and secure – while the second delivered a fantastic expansiveness that somehow took them beyond themselves.

Taos’ signature “Passive Solar” design long ago melded into the broader rubric of “green building.” Building technology continues to evolve in pace with the mounting concern over carbon footprint and climate change. Here we look at four high-performance homes in Taos Ski Valley.