After moving to El Paso from Denver in 2014, Steve Santamaria hadn’t been in town long before he realized the dilapidated, century-old depot at 420 Campbell next to Interstate-10 needed some love.
It wasn’t just the building, he said, it was the address – 420, or April 20, which was the day he met his wife to be, Isha Rogers, the daughter of former El Paso Mayor Jonathan Rogers.
“When Steve was trying to find something to do in El Paso, he would drive around town and look at buildings,” she said. “One day, he took me to the depot and pointed at the address and said this is going to be ours someday.”
They were married there on April 20, 2019 at 4:20 in the afternoon.
By then, the depot project was already a part of their lives after they had outbid everyone at a dramatic courthouse bankruptcy auction in 2017 that turned into a showdown with the previous owner, Billy Abraham.
The partially restored building, renamed the St. Rogers Depot, had its debut as a new El Paso venue in January, 2020 when it staged two season-opening, sold-out performances of Pagliacci by the El Paso Opera.
In 2006, the freight depot was on Preservation Texas’ list of Most Endangered Places.
Linking the two halves of the building is a long, polished wood bar with tall lighted letters on the back wall spelling “El Paso.” It’s part of the sign that once stood atop the former El Paso Times and Herald Post building, which was demolished in the 1990s.
Catraar Group LLC installed the new, triple-pane glass windows on the I-10 freeway side and two-pane glass on the rail yard side.
“So, you can still hear the trains,” Steve said. “We didn’t want to keep all the train noise out.”
Original article by El Paso Inc
