When Penny Rembe and her husband set their sights on a 25-acre farm in the North Valley, they never envisioned what would stand on the property a half-century later.
Rembe said, like the lavender bushes that buffer Los Poblanos or the varietal roses of the Greely garden, it came organically. Plant by plant, brick by brick.
“It just happened,” she said, sitting outside the inn, while hummingbirds buzzed by fig trees and spotted towhees sang from high in the cottonwoods.
The 86-year-old matriarch of Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic Farm spoke modestly of the achievement — diversifying the agricultural property into a household name statewide, known as much for its historic and natural beauty as its lavender offerings.
On Friday, Urban Land Institute New Mexico honored three generations of the Rembe family with the John A. Myers Award for Leadership in Urban Excellence in an event at the Albuquerque Museum.
“This is the first time the award has gone to a family rather than an individual, and for good reason,” according to a news release from ULI. “The Rembes have spent decades doing something that’s increasingly rare: growing thoughtfully while protecting what makes a place special. Their stewardship of Los Poblanos — originally designed by John Gaw Meem — has become a model for how preservation and development can actually work together, not against each other.”
All that began with Penny Rembe and a passion. For her career notebook in the eighth grade, she said she wrote her dream was to be a landscape architect. “I just loved plants and being outside.”
Rembe said, at one time or another, she has lived in every building on the property and done every job, serving as cook, maid and event planner. But her favorite was groundskeeper.
“I love clearing out a garden and getting things cleaned out, and I can’t stand to see the weeds,” Rembe said, though she can weed no longer. “I had two new hips, two new knees, and a few spines so I can’t get down on the ground anymore. It kills me, because that’s what I really love to do.”
And despite having 300 employees on the grounds, she still handles the pruning — particularly of the roses in the Greely garden, designed by landscape architect Rose Greely. The historic buildings that dot the property were designed by Meem, the famed Santa Fe architect.
For Rembe and her late husband, Armin, or “Armie,” as she affectionately called him, posterity was always the name of the game. But ending up on a farm in the first place was a happy accident.
The couple and their children had bopped around from Dallas to Boston before coming to New Mexico for Armin to complete his hematology fellowship. The plan was always to return to Armin’s native Washington but, after three weeks in Albuquerque, he told her “I’m never going back to Seattle, find a house.”
Rembe said her husband loved the landscapes — how you could see forever — and the culture. She recalled with a laugh how he told her, “If I could do it over again, I’d like to be from a Hispanic family, because they’re so nice to their fathers.”
While living in the Southeast Heights, the Rembes befriended Ruth and Albert Simms, who lived on the North Valley property. In 1976, the couple had grown weary of the duties and upkeep and were looking to sell.
Rembe said she and Armin, by then a doctor, paired up with his sister and her husband to buy the property. She said none of them had experience gardening, ranching or anything in between, but they learned in time.
“I knew which things were going to grow and which things I would pull out … things I wouldn’t fool with,” Rembe said. Their four children had jobs, their daughter looked after the roses and the boys split time watching over the sheep and maintenance.
Rembe balanced taking care of the children and watching over the farm with community involvement, serving on the University of New Mexico Board of Regents and on the Agricultural Committee for the village of Los Ranchos.
Two decades into the experiment, Armin’s sister and husband decided to move to Ireland, leaving a decision to make: sell half the property – along with the historic La Quinta – or take it over.
“I said, ‘Armie, we got to figure out something,’” Rembe said.
They bought the entire property and turned their home into an eight-room bed-and-breakfast, planting fruit trees like persimmons and figs all around it. The vacated La Quinta became an event space. As visitors grew and the original kitchen and dining room could no longer accommodate the large groups — they built Campo, a restaurant and bar.
“Then we just sort of kept growing and planting,” she said. “We just kept adding more rooms and adding more stores and more things.”
During those times, Armin started a variety of projects, from Slovenian beehives and vegetable gardens to the introduction of swans and other animals.
Rembe said there were many lessons along the way.
She planted hundreds of rose bushes in the Greely garden only to replace them with David Austin roses for the aroma, she said, adding they smell best in the morning. They once irrigated off the river but found it brought weed seeds, so then a drip system was put in the rose garden.
All the while, they sought to preserve the original architecture and feel of the place, building out in the Meem style.
“We loved historic properties … the feeling of the buildings, the way they’re laid out,” Rembe said. “You’re really outside as much as you’re inside.”
To ensure the property kept a farming element, they gave part of the land away for an agricultural trust. Often, she said, the ancestors of the families who owned the property more than a century ago come visit.
Those who came as children return as adults.
During the interview, a man visiting with his family approached Rembe. He told her how in 1969, when he was a little child — holding his hand 3 feet off the ground — he came to the farm and stayed in tents along the river with other children. The man described it as a magical time.
Rembe joked that people sometimes think things are staged at the farm, like when the geese eggs hatched around Mother’s Day and the mother goose had all her babies following her for all to see.
But that’s just another day on the farm. Always something happening in a place that — by design — will never get new.
With a laugh, Rembe added, “We’re not going to change anything. I’m through adding.”
