Art & soul

Santa Fe, New Mexico, has an other-worldly beauty. Surrounded by mountains and desert, its downtown is characterised by adobe buildings in abstract cubist shapes, dotting the skyline like giant anthills.

- Pip Rich

'We often say Santa Fe is baked out of the sun and earth,' says the interior designer Heather French, co-founder of the studio French & French Interiors (along with her husband Matt), and a proud inhabitant of the city. 'It's made from mud and clay and there is a lot of soul to it.' She could just as easily be talking about this three-bedroom house she has recently refurbished. It's a perfect smooth-edged and rounded-corner example of the city's architectural style, built in the 1980s into the side of a mountain, a crescent moon-shaped footprint to accommodate the rocky terrain. And it's now home to an enriching mix of original decorative tiles and patterned fabrics from the likes of Morris & Co, Samuel & Sons and Designers Guild.