Alois and Marietta Renehan's home, the Willows, was built on the site of the Fischer Brewery.  The brewery was established in the 1880s (it appears on the Birds-Eye View of Santa Fe in 1882) and was closed in the late 1890s.  Alois bought the property and the 1902 Sanborn map lists it as "Dilapidated, used as a residence."  In its heyday, it boasted a performance stage, a beer garden and a bowling alley.

In 1894, Rudolph Eickmeyer wrote in his book "Letters From The South-West" about the brewery.

"Palace Street is the Fifth Avenue of Santa Fé.  Most of the stylish residences line its sides; but a little distance from these I made a discovery.  To see the city, you generally go over to the west side of the Santa Fé River, drive up the valley through the Mexican town, and return by Palace Street, after crossing to the east side of the river on a bridge.  Well, one day we made this trip, and when within a half mile of the stylish part of the street we discovered on our right a sign with the legend "Santa Fé Beer Garden."  We stopped, of course, and found ourselves in the Fatherland.  Tables under the trees and a jolly fellow-countryman of mine ready to serve his customers with pure Santa Fé lager and real St. Louis pretzels.  When he brought the lager, however, I was both astonished and amazed.  You have, no doubt, seen in Yonkers, in front of the establishments where the juice of King Gambrinus is flowing, a sign with the picture of a tumbler of huge size, saying, "Schooners, five cents."  But even the schooners there offered to the thirsty are not to be compared with those of Santa Fé.  I could account for it in but one way, namely, the climate here is exceedingly dry, and to moisten the throat it takes a large quantity of fluid.  In all my travels I have never met as good measure, except in the Hofbräu, in Munich, Bavaria, where his Royal Highness the King furnishes his thirsty subjects with lager at so much a "stein."