The Georgia O'Keeffe Home and Studio is located in the small unincorporated village of Abiquiú, near the St. Thomas Church. The building is a single-story adobe structure, largely built in the traditional style. It has thick adobe walls, and a flat roof supported by a network of vigas and latillas (smaller wooden elements crossing the larger viga beams). The house is organized in wings a single room deep, which surround a central patio/plaza. The house has a number of modernist elements, including skylights and large picture windows that provide expansive views of the surrounding landscape and brought natural light into areas that such houses traditionally did not have. O'Keeffe was insistent on these types of deviations from the traditional form, stating in an interview that "I didn't want a Spanish house; I didn't want an Indian house, [or] a Mexican house; I wanted my house!"[4][2]
Portions of the house are believed to date to the 1730s, and it was in deteriorating condition when Georgia O'Keeffe first spotted it in the 1930s. At the time, it was owned by the Roman Catholic church, which did not want to sell it. It eventually relented, and O'Keeffe was able to purchase it in 1943. She undertook to rehabilitate and modernize the property, work that was a collaborative effort with her friend Maria Chabot. This work was completed in 1946, at which time O'Keeffe made it her permanent home. Included in the compound is a smaller outbuilding which was her principal studio space.[4]
The house remained O'Keeffe's primary residence until 1984, when she moved to Santa Fe two years prior to her death at age 98. In 1989, the Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation became owner and manager of the Abiquiú property. It is now owned and managed by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.
