Gallup homes open for holiday
Annual Parade of Homes is Cancer Society fund raiser

Robert and Lori Mortensen's home will be one of four on the American Cancer Society's annual Parade of Homes. The event will take place Sunday, December 16 and will help raise money for the cancer foundation. [Photo by Brian Leddy/Independent]

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

The Mortensen's straw bale home will be open for tours as part of the American Cancer Society's annual Parade of Homes. [Photo by Brian Leddy/Independent]

GALLUP — Just as the American Cancer Society’s Relay For Life has become an annual summer tradition in Gallup, the organization’s Holiday Parade of Homes has become an annual winter tradition as well.

The fundraising event, sponsored by the local Ups and Downs Relay For Life Team, offers community members the chance to tour four beautiful area homes that have been decorated for the holiday season. Homeowners open their residences to the tour, and proceeds from the ticket sales go to support the programs of the ACS.

This year’s Holiday Parade of Homes will be held on Sunday evening, Dec. 16, said organizer Jeanneen Underwood. Tickets are $15 and must be purchased in advance. Participants will meet at 4:45 p.m. at the First United Methodist Church, 1800 Red Rock Drive, before being divided up into four tour groups. Corley’s, Gurley’s, and Rico’s have all donated the use of passenger vans for the evening.

For the first time in the event’s history, a custom designed straw bale home will be featured in the tour. Homeowners Lori and Robert Mortensen will be guiding visitors through their 4,800 square foot, 8-year-old Catalpa Canyon home.

Like most straw bale homes, the Mortensen home features a “truth window,” which is a glassed-in opening — cut into a wall of the structure — which offers a view of the wall’s straw bale construction. However, unlike most straw bale homes, the house features a different kind of wall construction. To make it easier to run wiring throughout the home, the Mortensens utilized a more standard two by four frame construction method and then attached the straw bales to the framing. The home’s thick straw bale walls provide an extremely quiet and well-insulated environment.

“Nobody over here was interested in doing a straw bale,” said Lori Mortensen, explaining why she and her husband had to go to Corrales to find a contractor. The home was designed around a huge rock formation located at the back of the house, she added, and it features a number of different elevations to follow the natural slope of the land.

The Spanish-styled home has hand carved support beams, a beautiful ceiling constructed of vigas and latillas, red tile flooring with radiant heat, and a number of nichos in the plaster walls. The entryway features a custom-designed front door with Hopi design motifs, and the focus of the living room is an adobe fireplace handcrafted by Gallup contractor Victor Teran.

Mortensen said she designed her kitchen with granite countertops and stainless steel appliances with her adult sons in mind. “It’s pretty indestructible,” she explained.

The pantry, which can hold weeks of non-perishable food supplies, was built large enough to keep her from having to go grocery shopping very often. The spacious home also offers lots of room for Mortensen’s collection of Christmas nativity scenes and southwestern art and furniture.

“We just enjoyed building this house,” she said. “It was loads of fun.”

Tickets for the Holiday Parade of Homes can be purchased at the Gallup McKinley Chamber of Commerce or by contacting Jeanneen Underwood at (505) 863-6140.