Adobe has long been part of Northern New Mexico’s landscape. Liana Joy Sanchez, majority owner of Avanyu LLC, specializes in historic adobe preservation and brick production, including the adobe bricks to be used in Ghost Ranch’s accommodations. For Liana, adobe is about reconnecting with ancestral buildings techniques and bringing people together to ensure future generations carry this knowledge forward.
“This is the knowledge that my ancestors carry,” Liana says. Her inspiration comes from the communities who built these structures and the history held within their adobe walls.
“You can walk into these pueblos and see these structures have existed and continue to persevere,” she explains. “The reason why we go to the ruins in Puye Cliffs, you go to the caves, you’re feeling that. You’re making that trek to feel what it was like at that moment in time to exist.”
Liana hopes future generations will have the same opportunity to experience that connection themselves. “I want my next generations to have that opportunity to be able to live in an Adobe home. That is something that should be ours, should be available.” She hopes those generations will be able to say that ”This structure’s lasted, it’s housed this many people, it’s protected this many people, it’s healed this many people.”
Avanyu is producing bricks using the dirt from the Ghost Ranch landscape, keeping the material connected to the land where the buildings will stand. Liana says “Ghost Ranch soils are really special, we didn’t outsource soils from all across New Mexico we used and produced what was around us. It’s keeping that space and place localized.” She says “The land from Ghost Ranch in these bricks are making a very strong product that will last. And the sun is blessing it as well, creating something that’s going to be viable, usable, and nourished.”
She reflects on how each person contributes to the adobe and how that collective effort becomes part of the places they build. “Each person involved in creating these adobe bricks leaves a part of themselves in the walls. Every time you go to a Pueblo, you can say that part of me is there. And now, through the work we’re doing at Ghost Ranch, we’re carrying that forward, giving that back, and reclaiming it for all of us.”
Liana says she feels her ancestors are happy with her as she reconnects with traditional adobe building. “Being able to make adobes in San Ildefonso again is something that is reciprocated, giving that respect back,” she says. She hopes this knowledge will continue to be passed down so “that we can keep the next generations utilizing and using and help us heal.”
We are honored to work with Avanyu LLC on this project, using soil from Ghost Ranch to create adobe bricks that connect the land and community itself to the building that will one day stand here. Groundbreaking for the new accommodations is planned for spring 2027, we look forward to sharing more of this story as the project takes shape.
“The land from Ghost Ranch in these bricks is making a very strong product that will last. And the sun is blessing it as well, creating something that’s going to be viable, usable,
and nourished”
Liana Joy Sanchez, Majority Owner & Daily Operations Manager
All images by Elizabeth Wells Photography
