This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

Back in the early 2000s, an architect named Trey Jordan wrote a letter to

Santa Fe New Mexico's historic preservation division, laying out the details of a house he was hoped. the

historic preservation division, laying out the details of a house he was hoping to build in the city's

historic district. The process started out pretty normal.

We were just not ready for what happened. I mean, I don't remember the process being that thorny.

The first indication that things maybe wouldn't go smoothly had to do with the color of the stucco that Trey wanted to use.

I do recall that in my proposal letter, I had mentioned that the stucco color would be a custom color similar to I think it was cotton wood which is its

standard color of a commercially available stucco.

Buildings in the historic district have to follow a number of design guidelines so that they fit

in with Santa Fe's traditional Adobe look.

Senior producer Delaney Hall.

The style called Pueblo Revival comes from indigenous Pueblo architecture and the area's old Spanish missions. Think low brown buildings with smooth edges.

In the historic district, buildings can only be so tall, windows have to be a certain distance from the corners,

roofs generally have to be flat, and stuccos have to be earth tone. And the stucco tray wanted to use, the color that was close to cottonwood,

it was an earth tone. It was just a little different than usual. Still, the board approved it.

But then things started to get weird.

When we stuck out the house, it got back to me

that two of the board members were very upset about the color and they took

samples of cottonwood over to the house to hold it up to the stucco.

Well of course it didn't match Cottonwood, but as I said in my letter it would be a custom color similar to, and I think it was quite obvious that it was.

There were other subtle ways that the house was different from the traditional

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