By james art 
July 15 – A sign posted Monday on the front door of La Casa Sena in downtown Santa Fe said the restaurant was closed for lunch “until further notice.”
A sign in the wine shop at the restaurant next door says it will not sell alcohol until further notice.
Liquor licenses for La Casa Sena and other popular eateries owned by Businessman Gerald Peters’s Santa Fe Dining expired last month. The liquor license lapses, La Casa Sena’s limited hours – dinner only – and the closure of the Wine Shop come as Peters faces at least three lawsuits filed by creditors and has put some of his real estate on the market.
The famed art dealer and real estate magnet, who has remained silent in recent weeks as civil complaints and restaurant struggles generated buzz, reflected Monday on his legacy in the city and his decision to return to his holdings.
Peters acknowledged in an email his decision to sell a “modest number” of properties, some his family has owned for more than 40 years.
“It never hurts to have new energy,” he wrote. “And I achieved what I wanted, which was early versions of the larger space of the boxes, which employed very few people, and breaking them down into smaller spaces that sometimes multiplied the employment opportunities by 10 to 20 times .”
His Santa Fe Arcade, a strip mall-style property near the southwest corner of the Plaza on San Francisco Street that opened in 2004, was a novel idea that offered lower-cost retail space for small, upscale merchants. A civil complaint filed in June sought to foreclose on the arcade, alleging that Peters and his wife, Kathleen Peters, owe $87,000 on a decade-old $13 million loan tied to the property.
Another lawsuit in June accused the couple of defaulting on a $2.8 million loan from Weststar Regional Bank.
The most recent civil complaint against the couple, filed July 10, alleges they are in default on two loans from Albuquerque-based Southwest Capital Bank.
Gerald Peters writes via email that his jobs were “scarce” when he began buying real estate in Santa Fe and believes he created employment opportunities by “reconfiguring commercial space.”
“I am pleased to have achieved more than that,” he wrote. “So, over the next ten years, I’m going to sell some of the real estate.”
He has “always tried to create stable employment for a lot of people” in the community, he wrote, calling himself Santa Fe’s largest private employer, which “tends to bring countless struggles.”
Peters did not elaborate on the financial health of his companies.
However, he wrote that the two loans from Southwest Capital Bank were in the process of being “relocated.”
“As of this morning I was committed to moving them,” he wrote. “The money is owed to the banks and it will be paid.”
The bank issued one loan in 2019. for more than $8 million, and another in 2022. for $3 million, according to the complaint. The loans issued to Peters’ Pan Art Inc. and Bandelier LLC, had a combined balance of more than $2 million, the complaint said.
According to the lawsuit, the loans were backed by collateral that included a long list of artworks as well as Peters’ life insurance policy. The list names artworks by Pablo Picasso, Grant Wood and Andrew Wyeth and several pieces made by Tiffany Studios.
In 2022 the bank sold some of Peters’ collateral: a 1922 painting of Georgia. since 1922, according to the complaint; The proceeds were applied to one of the loans. The lawsuit seeks to sell another O’Keeffe painting from the Peters collection, titled Abstraction.
In mid-June, Santa Fe Properties listed several downtown properties tied to Peters for sale.
A property on East Palace Street that houses a year-round Christmas store, the store is listed for more than $4 million. The property is owned by Peters and his wife, according to an online database provided by the Santa Fe County Assessor. Another on Paseo de Peralta, which houses an office for real estate rental company Casas de Santa Fe, was listed for $1.6 million. The PO Box associated with the property’s holding company is linked to many of Peters’ companies.
Two properties on Johnson Street and Chapel Street connected by the same mailbox were listed for nearly $2 million each. They house the Terracotta Wine Bistro restaurant and some residential units.
The Maria building’s new Mexican on Cordova Road — one of Santa Fe Dining’s restaurants — appeared on several listings for a few days last month before Santa Fe Properties president and qualifying broker Matt Desmond announced it was not for sale; It was published incorrectly due to a “clerical error”, he said.
Maria suffered a blow in April when a Santa Fe jury awarded a woman $31 million after a trial in her lawsuit alleging she suffered a spinal cord injury after stepping into a pothole in a restaurant parking lot.
Peters called the sentence “excessive in the extreme” and “most unfortunate”. This could have a “very negative impact on insurance rates for small businesses across the country,” he wrote in his email.
Managers of the Santa Fe dining hall did not return calls seeking comment Monday.
Peters noted that he is a shareholder of the restaurant group and “not an employee.”
The company’s restaurants have experienced “some management challenges,” he wrote, “which we are working to address.”