"Long recognized for his landmark public buildings in Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Colorado Springs, John Gaw Meem's name is synonymous with Santa Fe style. Facing Southwest provides the first intensive introduction to Meem's great houses - sun-baked retreats that echo desert mesas and open out to vast landscape panoramas.

It uncovers the fascinating personal odyssey that took Meem from a bicultural childhood in Brazil to the Virginia Military Institute, to work on the design of New York City subways, to an abbreviated career in international banking in Brazil, and to a tuberculosis sanitarium in Santa Fe, where he found his life's work."--BOOK JACKET.