Santa Fe builder remembered as tireless advocate for affordable, green housing

Yahoo

23-04-2025

A longtime Santa Fe contractor, green building code expert and affordable housing proponent died last week in Costa Rica, where he and his longtime partner lived for the past few years, according to his family.
Kim Shanahan, 68, died Friday of a heart attack while at home near the Costa Rican town of Uvita, according to his children, Isabel and Lyle Shanahan. Kim Shanahan had moved to Uvita, a community near the Pacific Coast, 2½ years ago with his partner, Lisa Boegl, they said.
Miles Conway, executive officer of the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association, said Shanahan led with his heart when it came to the issues that were most important to him: green building and energy efficiency.
'He told it straight. When he spoke and he wrote, he didn't pull any punches,' Conway said. 'His voice will be deeply missed.'
According to information from his family and the Construction Dispute Resolution Services website, Shanahan, who studied at Michigan State University from 1975 to 1979, spent 35 years as a general contractor building luxury custom homes while remodeling others and helping craft affordable housing subdivisions. For many years, he was the executive officer of the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association, a position he took after serving as the organization's board president in the early 2000s.
After leaving the association at the end of 2018, Shanahan became a private sustainability consultant focusing on water conservation, indoor air quality, energy efficiency and affordable housing.
That's when he began writing a weekly column for The New Mexican's Sunday real estate section called Building Santa Fe, which covered a variety of homebuilding issues. His final submission for the paper, which ran in Sunday's edition, focused on an effort by City Councilor Carol Romero-Wirth to get revisions to the city's green building codes approved by the council before the end of her term this year.
'Resourceful creativity'
Lyle Shanahan recalled watching — and sometimes helping — his father build the family cabin on Cow Creek when he was a child during the summer of 2003.
'He instilled a sense of resourceful creativity in building in me that I will forever cherish,' Lyle Shanahan wrote in an email to The New Mexican, also recalling that his father gave him his first set of power tools when he was 7.
'Perhaps a questionable age to receive such a gift these days, but it was the '90s, man,' he wrote.
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Kim Shanahan at Cow Creek, where the family has a cabin he built years ago from leftover materials from other projects.
That cabin became a popular gathering spot for members of the Shanahan clan and their friends from all over the world. Built from leftover materials from other projects, Lyle Shanahan said it represents his father's ingenuity.
'His resourcefulness, skill and creativity shines through in his building details, and he was proud to share his work with the community at large,' Lyle Shanahan wrote.
He said he was fortunate enough to get to spend time with his father just last month.
'Though my dad has been very far away in Costa Rica for the last couple years, I recently got to see him in NYC for my birthday in late March,' he wrote. 'Being able to play one last round of golf with the old man while his brand new grandson was swaddled on my sister's chest sitting next to him in the cart will always be a special memory for me.'
Both Lyle and Isabel Shanahan credited their father with instilling a 'feral curiosity' and '505 attitude' in them through the adventures and hikes he led them on around the state when they were children. They said they have carried those characteristics with them well into adulthood — 'including knowing how to get through barbed wire fences in style.'
'He told it straight'
Conway, of the homebuilders association, said he and Kim Shanahan regularly worked together on energy-efficiency issues. He recalled they had spoken on the phone just last week.
'He was deeply involved in some policy changes going before the City Council now,' Conway said.
Conway said he got no indication from the conversation Shanahan might have been experiencing health issues.
'He seemed like himself,' Conway said. 'He was on it.'
That conversation was typical of how the two men communicated over the years, he said.
'We talked, we conspired about what we were going to do next, and we commiserated,' Conway said, laughing. He described Shanahan as the 'most-involved community member in Santa Fe living on foreign soil.'
Conway said Shanahan seemed to be enjoying his life in Costa Rica, adding with a chuckle his friend often could be seen scrambling to put a shirt on at the start of virtual meetings after coming straight from the beach.
Christine Chavez, water conservation manager for the city of Santa Fe, said she was shocked and saddened by the news of Shanahan's death, especially as the two of them had just spoken Friday as they continued making plans for the 2025 Next Generation Water Summit to be held June 5-6 in Santa Fe.
Chavez described him as a mentor who was passionate about water and sustainability issues.
'I feel so honored to have worked so closely with him,' she said.
Chavez said when she began writing a column for a local magazine, she asked Shanahan for his feedback. Even though the two didn't know each other well at that point, Shanahan was gracious and generous with his time, she said.
'If you asked him, he definitely would lend his ear,' she said. 'I just really admired him and the work he did.'
Tireless advocate
Retired homebuilder and longtime friend Bruce Thompson said he met Shanahan nearly 30 years ago when Shanahan came to work for him as a subcontractor. Thompson eventually hired Shanahan as a project manager and superintendent.
'He was just an all-around great guy,' Thompson said. 'He got along with people extremely well.'
Thompson said it had been as long as two and a half years since he had spoken to Shanahan, but that didn't ease the pain of the loss.
'We were very close,' Thompson said. 'I miss him.'
Thompson said Shanahan will be remembered as a tireless advocate for green building codes and as one of the most familiar faces in the Santa Fe homebuilding community.
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Kim Shanahan with his partner, Lisa Boegl. The Santa Fe home contractor, who moved to Costa Rica, died Friday at 68. He wrote a weekly column for The New Mexican, with his last one running Sunday.
Glenn Schiffbauer, executive director of the Santa Fe Green Chamber of Commerce, said he met Shanahan when he was hired for the position and Shanahan was on the organization's board.
'I had never worked in the nonprofit world,' Schiffbauer said. 'He was my mentor. He knew a lot more of the ropes than I did.'
Eventually, the two became very close, he said. While Shanahan was a talented and eloquent writer, Schiffbauer said, he also had an edge to him that people didn't always respond well to, especially when it came to sustainability and environmental issues.
'I would like people to remember him all warm and fuzzy,' Schiffbauer said, chuckling. 'But he was opinionated.'
Nevertheless, Shanahan never put forth an argument that wasn't well reasoned, he said.
On the flip side of his personality, Schiffbauer said, Shanahan was a huge reggae fan, even using a reggae tune for the introductory music for the radio program he hosted in Santa Fe.
Contrarian and dreamer
Daniel Werwath, who served as the housing policy adviser for Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham until earlier this month, said he worked closely with Shanahan on several housing issues over the last 20-plus years.
'There was hardly anybody in our community more passionate about housing and how we could be better at housing, especially affordable housing,' Werwath said.
It was their first meeting that really stuck in Werwath's mind as he pondered Shanahan's death Monday.
Shanahan was serving on the Santa Fe Planning Commission and when Werwath appeared before the body to make a presentation on behalf of an affordable housing organization he represented, Shanahan immediately put him on the spot, he recalled.
'He asked this really pointed question,' Werwath said, chuckling as he recalled how the question made him squirm. 'He asked me, 'What makes nonprofits best suited to deliver affordable housing, especially since the private sector has all this experience?' '
Werwath said that always struck him as a great question, one that demonstrated Shanahan's penchant for digging below the surface and his unwillingness to accept the status quo.
It also made clear to Werwath that no one has all the answers when it comes to solving the affordable housing crisis.
'Housing is always a collaborative effort,' he said.
Werwath characterized his friend as a contrarian and a bit of a dreamer.
'He was always very captivated by big ideas on how to move things forward,' he said.
Shanahan also was a board member at Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity. Rob Lochner, the organization's construction director, described him as a good friend and said the two of them worked closely together on various issues.
'He was always super active in the community,' Lochner said, adding Shanahan will be missed by a lot of people.
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Kim Shanahan died Friday of a heart attack at age 68.
Brian Barker, the deputy managing editor of The New Mexican, said Shanahan's columns were a valued contribution to the paper.
'It's not easy to find a knowledgeable, engaging voice on housing and development,' he said. 'Kim gave readers that and more every Sunday for years, drawing on his personal and professional experiences to provide valuable insight on the homebuilding industry, energy efficiency and the future of Santa Fe. Even after he moved to Costa Rica, it was obvious Northern New Mexico was never far from his mind.'
In addition to Lyle and Isabel Shanahan, and Boegl, Kim Shanahan is survived by his grandson, Elio Kim Guarascio Shanahan.
The family said no memorial service has been planned. In lieu of flowers, well-wishers are asked to make donations in Kim Shanahan's name to Santa Fe Habitat for Humanity.