San Antonio Home Listed On State Historic Register

By John Larson
SAN ANTONIO – A Victorian-style adobe house in San Antonio is now on the State Register for historic buildings.
The house, at 1776 Main Street, was built by Constancio Meira in 1907, and is now undergoing renovations by current owners Robert and Denise Selina.
Selina said the project will take from 18 to 24 months to complete.
“As for our plans, over the next 18 months or so we are trying to renovate the exterior of the house and outbuildings,” he said.
The Selina’s renovations will include new architectural shingle roof on the main residence, restoration of windows, repairing wood and trim molding along the eaves and gables, restoration of the chimneys, stucco repair, and other renovations.
“We’re currently working on some of the landscaping work and the chimneys. We’ll get the electrical work done next, followed by the new roof for the main residence,” Robert Selina said.
The state is recognizing the structure as having historical merit. A press release said that Constancio Miera was a mover and shaker in San Antonio in 1906 when the Carthage coal fields re-opened and gave the community its second boon. 
The following year, Miera built his family a large Territorial Victorian home out of adobe and today it is one of the few remaining buildings from San Antonio’s heyday.
In 1880, San Antonio de Senecu, which was originally settled in 1660, was the largest city in New Mexico south of Albuquerque. The Santa Fe Railroad built a line to the coal fields in 1881, which greatly accelerated the town’s growth. The fields closed 10 years later, but re-opened in 1907 and operated until 1951.
During the early part of the twentieth century, Miera built several buildings, some of which still stand including his first home, also listed in the State Register.
He built the modern day San Antonio Catholic Church and the now-closed Crystal Palace, whose historic “Hilton Bar” also is listed and in service to patrons at the Owl Bar and Café, a destination for locals and travelers and the watering hole for scientists and personnel who prepared the Trinity Site for detonation of the world’s first atomic bomb.
Miera lived in the home until his death in 1951 and a daughter continued to reside there until 1983. San Antonio peaked shortly after construction of the family’s second home. Floods in 1929 and 1937 destroyed many of the town’s buildings and quite a few of those that remained were scavenged for materials as the town sank from its period of prosperity.  The Miera House is significant as one of the few remaining buildings from the era.
“The newest listings in the State Register focus on turn-of-the-century New Mexico shortly before it achieved statehood and up into the 1960s. They illustrate how preservation can help provide an important link from a community’s past to its present,” said Jan Biella, who began serving as interim State Historic Preservation Officer for the New Mexico Historic Preservation Division in August.
The Selinas will preserve the home using state income tax credits for rehabilitating historic properties. Their tax credit project was approved by the Cultural Properties Review Committee of the Historic Preservation Division of the Dept. of Cultural Affairs. 
Persons owning listed properties in New Mexico are eligible to receive credits on their state income taxes over a five-year period for up to 50 percent of rehabilitation costs or a limit of $25,000 per project. 

San Antonio Home Listed On State Historic Register