A HOUSE NOT MADE WITH HANDS
An Autobiography

      “How truly delightful and astonishingly frank this autobiographical sketch is—the story of Wilfred ‘Sted’ Stedman and Myrtle Stedman, who arrived in Santa Fe in 1932. Myrtle not only tells of her life as a painter and a famous builder of adobe houses, but of the people and culture of Santa Fe (mostly) from the early thirties to today (‘Sted’ died in 1950). So many names come up in the text: Oliver La Farge, Walter Goodwin, Alice Corbin Henderson, Gustave Baumann, Randall Davey, George Fitzpatrick, etc. Her writing style is so cozy and real that you feel just like you spent an evening or two in her kitchen talking about the old times. Don’t pass this one up. It will invigorate you, teach you, and console you in its openness.”
     
      —Book Talk
     
     
            “Stedman’s life changed when her husband, artist and architect Wilfred Stedman took her to Taos and Santa Fe during the artist-colony development of the 1930s. They settled on an old ranch in Taos and together began rebuilding the adobe ranch house. Then Myrtle realized her love of adobes, which flourished as they rebuilt numerous adobes together. After the death of her husband in 1950 she went on to become a leading authority on adobe construction. Nice descriptions of the country, and occasional spiritual overtones, in this autobiography.”
     
      —Books of the Southwest