House & Garden Tour
By Jennifer Hamilton February 22, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

House & Garden Tour
Sun, Feb 24, Noon
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
US$15 or 150 pesos
Breakfast at Café Santa Ana starting at 9am

First House. This astounding home is truly a treat for lovers of fine antiques and artwork. Atop the stairwell is a sixteenth-century Italian Renaissance cabinet leading to the formal sala. An eighteenth-century French mirror hangs above the fireplace. On either side of the sala are two beautiful guest bedrooms with coronas draped over each bed, oriental rugs and stunning artwork.

A softly undulating stairwell leads to the elegant den. The first bedroom contains a pillow-filled four-poster bed and beautiful bird prints. The fireplace is nineteenth-century English Chippendale. In the formal dining room containing a late eighteenth-century sideboard hangs an antique Baltic Rock Crystal chandelier. The portrait on the wall has been restored to its original seventeenth-century luster. A long bar and pantry leads to the sizeable kitchen and faces the outside covered entertainment area. The copper sink was used to distill wine. The master suite has an outstanding four-poster bed and antique desk. Mirrors were made 
locally with cut crystals copied from an old chandelier. A library is filled with blue and white Oriental vases. This home contains one of the largest rooftop gardens in San Miguel with views in every direction.

Second house. This home was built in the sixties. A courtyard accesses a small patio garden to the second level, where three bóveda ceilings separate the extraordinarily furnished dining room and two open living areas with dazzling views.

A nicho on one side contains a Blackamoor statue. The furniture and artwork surrounding it in the living and dining rooms are exquisite antiques. The cantera fireplace was copied from Architectural Digest. Syrian tiles are seen in the kitchen. A Persian hand-painted mirror nestles into a small wall. Down the curving staircase are two guest bedrooms leading into the lushly planted garden with a loggia at its far end decorated with colorful pillows atop a cement base—a favorite place for the owners to relax in the hammock surrounded by greenery. The romantic bedroom upstairs faces north, with a seventeenth-century Spanish table and small crystal chandelier. The adjoining bathroom is tiled in blue and white with a Jacuzzi literally open to the world and exposed yet private view
3s across the town. It ultimately leads out to the roof garden with unsurpassed vistas over the city and mountains.

Third house. This seventeenth-century house is a prime example of colonial beauty. A rectangular pond sprouts water along its length. The kitchen is filled with eight different tile designs as well as a polished cement half-moon stovetop in the center and brilliantly colored accoutrements. The dining room contains a remarkable cantera hand-crafted fireplace and the living room has a beautiful vaulted ceiling, skylight and hand-crafted stenciled designs on the walls.

One of the bathrooms contains a most unusual cantera tub and baptismal sink. At the garden’s rear is a captivating Virgin de Guadalupe as well as a loggia. One of the bathrooms is copiously colored with hand-painted, multicolored tiles from floor to ceiling. On the second level the patio is rampant with colorful bougainvillea; onyx lights along the walls provide a soft romantic glow at night. The master bedroom has a dazzling view of the Parroquia. The master bath contains two brilliantly tiled sinks placed surreptitiously atop two ancient moteros used long ago to grind grain. Another brilliantly tiled tub is tucked deep into the rock wall. Orchids grace an outdoor Jacuzzi area.