CUSTOM WEBSITE · PHOTO & FILM
Casa Tua Santa Fe
Seven homes, each furnished by a designer of cultural hotels, shown in a booking engine’s template boxes. We rebuilt the storefront around how they feel — and every booking still runs through Hostaway.
5
home films by Wes, one opening each home he shot. The old site had no video at all.
35 days
from the first call, September 8, to the new site live at its own address
18
Santa Fe events on the calendar in October 2026, picked by Kris, who adds the next ones herself
THE FINISHED SITE
A first visit, recorded on the live site.
Wes’s opening film, the three neighborhoods, the homes, guest reviews, the next three months in Santa Fe, and where Kris sends her guests. Recorded on casatuasantafe.com, October 13, 2026.
THE PROBLEM
A designer’s homes, in a template’s boxes
Kris spent twenty-five years designing boutique and cultural hotels and private homes. In Santa Fe she made seven places of her own to share: a historic adobe compound off the Old Santa Fe Trail, with two farmhouses she built beside it, two lofts in the Railyard, and a garden apartment in Tulum. Seven years in, the business ran on repeat guests and ratings of 4.95 and 5.00.
The website was the basic plan from Hostaway, the system that runs her calendars and syncs every booking to Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com. It opened on a search form. Each home was a card with its Airbnb listing title, a star rating, and a few amenity tags. There was no film, and the story lived on one page of text. Kris put it plainly on our first call: “it’s just boxes.”
Guests noticed. One couple’s review, warm otherwise, admitted they couldn’t tell what style of house they’d stayed in. The brief, in Kris’s words: “I want it to be beautiful, tell the story … and be accurate for what it is.”
With one condition. “I want to work within their framework because everything is integrated with them,” she said of Hostaway, “and I don’t want to change that.”
THE RECEIPTS
“Historic Adobe on 1 acre compound Ultimate Santa Fe immersion Old World & Dreamy”
Los Santos, as the old site named it: the Airbnb listing title, written for Airbnb’s search box and carried over by the template.
“Mountain view · Air conditioning · Free WiFi”
Everything a card could say about the home: three amenity tags from the listing feed.
“Destination · Check-in · Check-out · SEARCH”
The homepage opened on a search form, before a guest saw a single room.
THE RULES
Five rules the site had to keep
Hostaway is how Kris runs the business: one calendar for every home and every booking site. The new website had to sit on top of it without changing a thing about how she works.
- 1
Hostaway stays the engine.
Rates, minimum stays, calendars, reservations, and the sync to Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com stay where Kris runs them. The site reads from Hostaway every hour and never writes to it.
- 2
Never a broken booking.
Every date a guest can pick has to be one Hostaway’s checkout will accept. The move to the new address runs in phases, each with its undo written down.
- 3
Kris runs it herself.
No code and no paid page builder. Events, picks, featured reviews, and the words on every home change from her own editor.
- 4
No addresses.
Kris asked for no street addresses and no ownership language. Maps show the neighborhood, and door numbers are blurred out of the photographs and films.
- 5
About five weeks.
The agreement, signed September 11, set about five weeks from signature. The site went live at its own address 32 days later.
THE PROCESS
Thirty-five days, from first call to live
Drafts went to Kris early and often, as PDFs she could mark up and as the live site on her phone, and every decision was written down in the project’s log: 116 of them by launch day.
Sep 8
The first call
Kris, Kahlil, and Wes on a video call. She described the homes and the guests they draw: couples and quiet retreats, no parties. What was missing was lifestyle photography and a site that told the story. The agreement was signed three days later.
Sep 15
Wes on site
Wes photographed and filmed Los Santos and the two farmhouses that week, then Sage and Tumbleweed on September 29 and 30: 362 frames and five home films across the five Santa Fe homes, with models in for the moments of a stay.
Sep 17
Hostaway’s own calendar, ruled out
We tried Hostaway’s calendar widget first. It drew September 24 at Los Santos as open, and its checkout then refused the stay: the minimum was four nights and the next night was booked. So the site got its own calendar, one that applies every rule the checkout applies before a night can be picked.
Hostaway’s widget on the development site, September 17, 2026. The bold 24 was the night its checkout refused. Sep 23
A color for each home
Four of the homes took a color from their own rooms: madder from the red sofa at Los Santos, turquoise from the painted birds and quilt at Farmhouse 2, juniper from the leaves and sage around the Farmhouse 1 door, rose from the pink plaster in Tulum. It marks the numbers, the rules, and the chosen dates on that home’s page.
Madder · Los Santos #963826Turquoise · Farmhouse 2 #296E79Juniper · Farmhouse 1 #536531Rose · Jungle House #955640Oct 1
Three pages, for approval
Kris got the homepage, the Sanctuaries page, and Los Santos as a numbered PDF, desktop and phone, with an Approved box on every section and five questions only she could answer.
The approval PDF Kris received, October 1, 2026. Oct 5
Revision one, through a guest’s eyes
Kris went through the site the way a first-time guest would. The films landed. The photo choices didn’t: they “don’t really capture the magic of the space,” she said. So version two let the films carry the feeling and the photographs show the rooms, walked through wide and in order, with Kris’s own photographs beside Wes’s.
One row of the numbered contact sheets for version two, October 5, 2026. Photographs marked (Kris) are her own. Oct 13
Live at its own address
casatuasantafe.com went live with Hostaway untouched. The old address followed the next day: since October 14 all 15 of its pages forward, each home’s old listing page to its new one.
THE BUILD
A storefront on top of the system she already runs
Four pieces carry the site: a film that opens every home, a calendar that only offers nights that can be booked, a phone-first layout, and an editor Kris runs herself.
Every home opens on its film.
Wes filmed five of the homes. Each one’s page opens on a silent loop behind its name, with Watch the film for the whole thing: a minute and a half at Los Santos, 54 seconds at Farmhouse 2.
Below the film, the rooms come first, walked through wide and in order, and then how the place feels. Phones get lighter cuts of every film, and a guest who asks for less motion gets a still and downloads nothing.
The calendar only offers nights that can be booked.
Hostaway’s availability feeds a calendar drawn in the site’s own design, a year ahead and refreshed every hour. Booked nights are struck through. Open nights too short for the minimum stay are dotted and can’t be picked, so no guest reaches a checkout that refuses their dates.
Reserve hands the dates and the guest count to Hostaway’s secure checkout, where the total appears. Nothing about how Kris takes a booking changed. The recording stops before payment, and we blurred the prices.
Built at phone width first.
Every page was designed and tested at phone width first: the homepage, the menu, each home, and the calendar. The phone gets its own vertical cut of the opening film.
Automated tests walk every main page at 375 pixels and in the browser engine iPhones use, so a change to one home can’t quietly break another.
Kris keeps it current herself.
Kris has her own editor, built into the site. The calendar of events, her picks for where to soak, eat, and catch a show, the reviews she features, the words on every home, and her own story all change there, and go live in seconds.
She can’t break a booking from it. Rates, minimum stays, and calendars stay in Hostaway, where she already sets them.
THE SHOOT
Wes behind the camera
Wes shot the five Santa Fe homes in late September: the rooms, wide and in order, and then life in them. A hammock on the Farmhouse 1 portal, the candlelit soaking room at Farmhouse 2, yoga in Tumbleweed’s loft. Five home films and the homepage’s opening film came from the same days.
“Those videos just blew me away.”
Photography and film by Wes · Creative Flow Studio
THE SITE, END TO END
Scroll the site, not a picture of it.
The live Casa Tua Santa Fe homepage, captured top to bottom at desktop and phone widths. You drive the scroll. The notes in the margin follow the page as it moves.
EVERY PAGE
Seven homes, one hand
Each home keeps its own color and its own film. The type, the cream and dusk, and the gold-leaf sun hold it together, from the Railyard to Tulum, on a laptop and in your pocket.
THE RESULT
What changed, line by line
First screen
BeforeA search form over one photograph.
NowWes’s film of the homes, Kris’s welcome, and three neighborhoods to choose from.
The homes
BeforeSix cards with Airbnb listing titles, star ratings, and amenity tags.
NowSeven homes by name, each with its own page, rooms first, then how the place feels.
Video
BeforeNone.
NowFive home films and an opening film by Wes, with lighter cuts for phones.
Booking
BeforeHostaway’s template search and calendar.
NowA calendar in the site’s own design that only offers bookable nights, handing the dates to the same Hostaway checkout.
Kris’s say
BeforeThe fields a template allows.
NowHer own editor for events, picks, featured reviews, the words on every home, and her story.
Speed and access
BeforeLighthouse on the homepage, phone: accessibility 85, performance 62.
NowAccessibility 100. Performance 65 on a phone, where the opening film is the weight, and 96 on desktop.
Lighthouse 12 on each homepage, October 13, 2026: phone scores are the middle of three runs, desktop one run each.
“Overall it’s incredible. I’m really, really happy … It went deeper than I was even thinking.”
Hostaway still takes every booking. Now the homes do the selling.
Live at its own address on October 13, 2026; the old address has forwarded since October 14. Direct bookings and Google Search Console numbers get added here as they come in.
Seven homes made by a designer now have a website that shows it, and Kris still takes every booking the way she always has.