Buggin’ Out

Harrell House Bug Museum closing at the end of the month

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Dozens of insects and arachnids, along with toads, turtles, fish and other animals, will soon be finding new homes. Harrell House Bug Museum is shutting down after a decade of educating Santa Feans on these critters.

Owner Wade Harrell says he got less than 30 days notice from Santa Fe Place mall that the business has to be out by Jan. 3, to be replaced by a national company—the name of which mall management refused to disclose to SFR.

“We’re really just heartbroken about it,” Harrell tells SFR, adding that he can’t afford to relocate. “It doesn’t feel real. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut when they told me and it’s just been, honestly, like somebody died. We’re reeling from it and we don’t have time to do that.”

Management offered the bug museum another space in the mall at the same price, says Antonio Guerrero, marketing manager for Spinoso Real Estate Group, which manages Santa Fe Place.

“We love Harrell House Bug Museum and are committed to helping secure a new home at Santa Fe Place,” Guerrero writes in an email.

Harrell says it’s more complicated than that.

Management came by the museum Tuesday afternoon—by which time a Facebook post announcing the closure Monday night had garnered attention from hundreds of users—and offered a garage space that used to be home to an auto repair shop, according to Harrell.

With a mortgage to pay and a kid in college, Harrell says he can’t afford to fix up the grease-splattered space, and management didn’t say whether the mall would foot the bill.

Harrell adds that management offered him other, smaller spaces in the mall last Friday, the day he got notice to clear out, but they wouldn’t work for the museum’s particular needs, such as water access.

Guerrero didn’t respond to follow-up questions.

Harrell House has been at Santa Fe Place, housed within Travelers Market, since June after moving from DeVargas Center.

There’s been an increase in foot traffic since the move, Harrell says, which he attributes in part to the area of town the mall is in having more families with kids. There were plans to host schoolchildren on field trips that, now, won’t come to fruition.

Harrell House’s impact on Santa Fe is clear.

The announcement on Facebook was met with over a hundred comments from residents expressing support and condolences.

“Your museum gave our daughter a love for bugs on her very first visit at age 4,” wrote one woman.

“This is awful news!” another wrote. “My family adores the bug museum and the love, passion and knowledge you shared. You will be greatly missed.”

On a recent afternoon, Harrell hands a museum attendee—who shares that he first visited years ago when the shop was still at DeVargas—a couple of blue death-feigning beetles, which get their name from a defensive behavior in which they play dead when disturbed.

The museum’s numerous live animals will be rehomed with employees, volunteers and other Santa Feans, while the collections of mounted spiders, butterflies and other insects, which number in the thousands, will be left with their owner, Ollie Greer, Harrell’s partner in the shop.

Harrell hopes a local nonprofit or museum will take interest and make a deal that would allow him to keep doing this work.

“Barring some miracle like that, it’s kind of over,” Harrell says.

The museum is expected to close on Dec. 30.