May 20--Zsa-Zsa Gabor got married at La Fonda. The Hollywood socialite/ actress married Conrad Hilton (husband number two of nine) in room 500 of the hotel in 1942.

"That was one of her many honeymoons," chief concierge Steve Wimmer said. "Her (then) daughterin-law Elizabeth Taylor stayed there. She was married very briefly to Nicky Hilton."

But inside a 7,000-square-foot Pacheco Street warehouse Saturday morning, a taped-together rusty red and floral suite from the hotel's grandest room sat unclaimed. Hundreds of buyers ignored the $1,000 price tag as they swept up old lamps, tin light fixtures, framed posters, sheet sets, green wastebaskets, tile room numbers and rubber shower stoppers at the hotel's sale for prices starting at $5.

Nearly all of the hotel's Crayolacolored furniture wore blue "sold" tags by 9:30 a.m. The Santa Fe landmark was selling pieces of its past as it undergoes a major renovation. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Santa Fe Community Foundation. Most of the buyers said the hotel reigned as a cherished Santa Fe memory they wanted to preserve in their own homes. Blue tape striped together nearly 30 upholstered wing chairs, the bounty of a single buyer. Carved and brightly painted twin bed headboards leaned against both the inside and outside walls, nearly all sold.

Seven hundred framed posters still beckoned as art lovers gingerly leafed through them -- they leaned precariously against one another and a wall. The artwork commemorated nearly every conceivable city event, from the Santa Fe Indian Market to the opera, the chamber music festival, the Santa Fe Fiesta and more.

Cars lined either side of Pacheco Street as bargainhunters and history buffs streamed to the warehouse -- the lines already trailed halfway down the block at about 6:30 a.m., when hotel employees arrived in a rush to get first dibs, La Fonda concierge Rebecca Hammer said. Organizers temporarily closed the chain-link gates at about 9:30 a.m. because the crowd inside exceeded city fire codes, she added.

Rio Rancho's Mark and Viola Liesse arrived early to claim their own tangible slice of La Fonda ambience. In the process of restoring her grandfather's old northern New Mexico adobe, they grabbed a $20 lamp and a $5 tin tissue box.

"I remember spending time there with my dad when Bruce King was being elected," Mark said. "There were lots of election parties. So you come back and get a piece of New Mexico history.

"If I could figure out how to carry that big chandelier, I'd load it," he added, gesturing toward a massive wrought iron wagon wheel light fixture that likely once loomed over the lobby or a large corridor.

Santa Fe's Patricia Montoya took home a carved coffee table.

"Everybody who comes to Santa Fe always wants to walk into La Fonda," she said. "You go back in time. As a little girl, I used to go in there with pocket change and buy candy."

Her husband Robert remembered getting a haircut nearby and regularly checking out the hotel for visiting stars.

"We saw Stevie Wonder in the '80s," Patricia said. "He was with his bodyguards. You never knew who you'd run into."

Robert Drummond came early to collect old Harvey House pieces "before the good stuff is gone." His excitement grew after he examined a framed landscape he thought was a Peter Hurd original for $20. A sticker on the back read "Metropolitan Museum of Art." The piece returned to a leaning tower of artwork after he discovered it was a print.

Santa Fe's Carolann Gutierrez picked up a $40 carved table she said would fit in either her home or office.

Heather Herd was looking for items for her Santa Fe "fixer-upper." She chose a floral chest of drawers for a guest bedroom, complete with a Gideon Bible hidden in a drawer.

"I've been in Santa Fe for 12 years," she said. "We go there in the evening to hear music. We take our guests to have breakfast there. We go up to the rooftop bar."

Not long after it was built in 1922, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad leased the property to hotel and restaurant magnate Fred Harvey. The late Sam and Ethel Ballen bought the hotel in 1968. The building that anchors the terminus of the Santa Fe Trail remains the only hotel on the Plaza. Its restaurant, La Plazuela, was renovated in 2009. The current hotel makeover is slated for completion in August.

The list of celebrities who slept at La Fonda could encompass a galaxy. Paul Newman, Eleanor Roosevelt, Saudi Arabia's King Faisal, Sinclair Lewis, Helen Keller, Vincent Astor (his father John Jacob died on the Titanic), Howard Hughes, Walt Disney, Cecil B. DeMille, Basil Rathbone, Ronald Reagan, Lou Costello, Gary Cooper and Katharine Hepburn all stayed, according to chief concierge Wimmer.

President John Kennedy arrived in 1962. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz stayed at La Fonda while she was making "Valley of the Sun" (1942) in Taos, Wimmer said.

"Ricky (Desi) kept coming to the set, probably because he was so jealous," he said. "The star in the movie was paying too much attention to Lucy. They took Ricky over to Taos Pueblo and they taught him Indian drumming and he taught them how to play the conga."

Artist Susie Taylor drove to Santa Fe from Carlsbad. She said she's been staying at La Fonda regularly since she was 5 years old. Her family moved to Hobbs from Kansas; they headed north on vacations. Today, Taylor travels to Santa Fe on business.

"I remember Santa Fe when it was still not paved and the donkey carts came in," she said.

The old hotel's kaleidoscopic interior has lingered in her mind's eye ever since.

It was "the colors in the furniture and the architecture -- because in Kansas we didn't see that," she said. " I have three favorite rooms on the first floor. I just feel like they have my spirit."

Taylor took home a handpainted blanket chest, four lamps, a signed tin mirror, a chair and ottoman and a framed poster of old Santa Fe.

"It shows an hacienda and it has Santa Fe on it and some hollyhocks," she explained.

Three of the lamps will go to friends; the rest will relocate to her home, she said from her cell phone, already back on the road.

"I'm done and I didn't even spend $125."

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