Jonathan Benson and Mary McGinn are the creative masterminds behind the recently remodeled home located in Las Cruces’ downtown district. What makes their home unique is their ability to add to a home that is historic. They also came up alongside a revitalization that was taking the Downtown/Alameda area by storm.

Jonathan, who serves as the director of the Creative Media Institute at New Mexico State University, and Mary, owner of The Bean in Mesilla, purchased the home in 2003. With strong ties in the community, both wanted to be a part of the Downtown Revitalization, but they also wanted a larger home. When they couldn’t find one, they built on and up.

“We wanted to build a home that reflected our desire to be part of the Downtown Revitalization, and we also wanted to build a modern, urban home that would go up, if only a story,” Jonathan says of the remodel that took 11 months, or as Jonathan would say, “Too long. Way too long.” The rush in building throughout the community was in part to blame for the delay in their remodel – builders everywhere were taking on extra work in an effort to keep up.

When adding to the home, which was a two bedroom, one bathroom home, Jonathan and Mary wanted to add out and up. With the help of Mary’s dad, John McGinn, they created a living room with an office, bathroom and laundry room to the side, and a master bedroom, bathroom and roofed porch on the second floor. The front door of the home is only a glimpse of the greatness that sits inside. Designed by Mary, the geometric design and size is, in itself, a piece of art. “I really put a lot of thought into that door,” Mary says. “It was important that we put that door there.”

The remodeled portion of the home includes features like stairs built with special hardware so they appear to be floating when viewed from the large picture windows and a window built into the ceiling, which serves both as a skylight and as a type of table on the roof with light coming up from below. Inside the home, contemporary furniture and home décor items from the fashionably sophisticated LuLu: Elements for Living bring everything together.

During the remodel, the couple didn’t need to take away much from their yard, where dogs Chia and Henry play or the storage area behind their house – part of the reason they built up to a second story.

All in all, Jonathan and Mary’s home is a classy example of revitalization – keeping the old, but bringing in the new. Vintage, yet contemporary.