MetroABQ Blog

Cool Color Combinations in the Historic Fourth Ward

A sweet couple worked with me to purchase a 100+year-old home Downtown about a year ago, & immediately began sprucing-up & remodeling the place. It was past time to see how it turned out...

The reimagined home, above, lives among many dozens of other 100+/- year-old homes in the exceptionally unique Fourth Ward neighborhood. I love the new, crisp caramel color faade, & the horizontal splash of deep crimson creates a great scene, as if the front porch was an extension of the interior living space.

From there, turn in any direction & again, Downtown impresses--more interesting homes sporting cool color combinations line the streets for blocks. Below is a small color palette sampling from homes a short walk from Mary Fox Park, in northwest Downtown.

A green-&-yellow Bungalow, a blue-&-green Cottage, a red-trimmed Cottage, a grey Tudor-style, & a sky-blue Colonial Revival style home, all sitting within a block of Downtown's Mary Fox Park. There are many dozens of fabulous homes living Downtown.

The interesting blue & white (& red) home immediately above even has a name: it's the R.A.Kistler House at 1301 Fruit Ave NW. The name is familiar to me because of the cool Mid-Century Modern two-level former Kistler-Collister Department Store on the corner of San Mateo & Lomas Blvds.

There's a lot more to be discovered about many of the homes in the historic Fourth Ward. A fantastic guidebook called Historic Houses in the DNA, from the City & MetroABQ's Downtown Neighborhood Associations (DNA), describes the origins of the many Downtown neighborhoods. There's the Fourth Ward, the Eighth Street Forrester area, the one-block Manzano Court cul-de-sac, Leon Watson Adobes on 16th & 17th Street, & features other historic homes situated in the peripherally to these neighborhoods.