Bill Lumpkins

ARTIST, ARCHITECT, ACTIVIST

Honored June, 1988

William 'Bill' Lumpkins

The term "Renaissance Man" is much overused. William Lumpkins truly earns the name. Architect, artist, solar energy pioneer, author, student of Zen Buddhism, community and political activist--William Lumpkins has been an important influence in Santa Fe for seventy years. Who else has a grand ballroom at the La Fonda Hotel named for him?

Born in 1909 on the Rabbit Ears Ranch near Clayton, New Mexico, to a pioneering family, he realized early in life that ranching was not for him. As a young man, he had for friends and mentors artist Peter Hurd and writer Paul Horgan, whom he met when his family relocated to Lincoln County and he was attending Roswell High School. At Capitan in 1935, he built his first passive solar house.