Carlos Vierra was born and raised in Moss Landing, California near Monterey by his father, Portuguese sailor, Cato Vierra and his mother, Maria de Fratas. Vierra went to school in Monterey, California and had a hard time deciding between a life at sea and art. He studied art at the Mark Hopkins Institute under Gottardo Piazzoni in the 1890s, until he was twenty-five. Wanting to further his studies, Vierra took a six-month trip around Cape Horn to New York City. Once there, he worked hard to become an illustrator, a growing artistic field. In time, his art began to comfortably sustain him, though only for a short time. In 1904, at age twenty-eight, Vierra contracted tuberculosis and, at the advice of his doctor, relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Vierra decided to live in a remote, small cabin along the Pecos River. When his health was not improved, he was forced to get help from the Sanitarium.
Vierra was Santa Fe's first resident artist and was one of the first three "members" of the Santa FeArt Colony. He was a strong advocate for preserving landmark buildings and for making sure that new buildings were in the style that is so unique to Santa Fe. That style is now known as the Pueblo Revival Style architecture. It was at the Sunmount Sanatarium, a restorative institution for tubercular consumption, where Vierra met architect John Gaw Meem and others who influenced each other and made sure the Pueblo Revival style of Santa Fe was preserved. The first houses in 1925 and 1926 that John Gaw Meem designed show a clear debt to his mentor, Carlos Vierra. In 1909, the School of American Archaeology's director, Edgar Lee Hewett appointed Vierra to manage the building of the New Mexico Museum of Art. Hewett also allowed him to have an influential role in restoring the Palace of the Governors, the oldest capitol building in the United States. Additionally, he painted three murals in the St. Francis Auditorium. In 1914, Frank Springer commissioned Vierra to paint each of the pueblo mission churches. These and other paintings would show both Spanish and Pueblo traditional New Mexico architecture. In 1918, after he wrote, "'See Santa Fe First.' There is a reason in our rare climate, in our wonderful surroundings and in what is left of historic Santa Fe. Are we going to destroy what is left…or are we going to build in keeping with it?" Vierra began construction on a pueblo style home for his family on Old Santa Fe Trail. It is considered the first residence built in the Spanish Pueblo Revival Style architecture. The home was funded by Frank Springer, who was a patron of the arts.
