House & Garden Tour
By Jennifer Hamilton

Sun, Jul 19, tour departs at noon 
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
US$15 or 150 pesos

Breakfast at Café Santa Ana starts at 9am

A purple fireplace and a house in a factory 

1. This homeowner designed a delightful, multihued, vibrant home filled with folk art, religious objects, global collectibles and whimsical artwork.

It was purchased in 2004 as a small Mexican home and her imagination soared with the possibilities of Talavera tiles, brilliant color and Mexican style. The end result is extraordinary, unconventional and whimsical. On the cactus-filled entrance patio is a tin Virgin de Guadalupe framed by a xuchil, a large platform used during Santa Cruz, Señor de la Conquista and San Miguel fiestas and fashioned from corn husks, branches and other natural materials. The soaring skylight admits unique light into the central sala with its purple fireplace. The entire house is filled with folk art, mostly from Michoacán, plus the owner’s own bohemian and eclectic style and talent for design. Retablos (small oil paintings on tin, zinc, wood or copper which venerate Catholic saints and were used in household altars in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries) cover one of the ki
tchen walls. The charming back garden, with its colorful hammock, is strung with hand-cut papel picado used for fiestas and religious occasions. Talavera tiles are embedded into the staircase leading to the upper floor with its office, romantic bedroom and scintillating tiled bath. The rooftop offers 360-degree, big-sky views enveloping the entire town and affording unparalleled vistas of morning sunrises.

2. This captivating, light-filled home in Aurora nestles surreptitiously behind galleries and art studios. Most of the original structure dating back over a hundred years still remains, as can be seen by the thick walls, high ceilings and the dramatic brick archway leading to the living and dining area.

The slab floors also date back to the factory’s origins. The vast living/dining area is dominated by a huge tin mirror behind the dining room table, a heart-shaped iron candle stand filled with a votive candles and an exceptional Buddha from Thailand. A guest bedroom is painted in soft hues and contains a locally made carved iron bed and seating areas surrounding the fireplace. Upstairs, the master suite contains huge windows on three sides and a substantial bathroom with a large Jacuzzi tub placed in the center. Polished cement floors were added and the closets fronted with reverse smoked mirrors adding drama to an already dramatic room. Views are to the south, where one can see many of San Miguel’s church do
mes. Two patio gardens, one on the rooftop and one leading from the bedroom, offer unusual vistas and contain seating areas, plants and varieties of cactus. Once San Miguel’s most profitable manta (rough-hewn cotton) factories, the building, which opened in 1904, provided work for many of the town’s residents for nearly a century. In the early 1990s the factory closed and lay fallow for several years until the early 2000s, when it became a force representing the works of the town’s most esteemed artists, designers, galleries and studios. It’s still growing by leaps and bounds.



THE HOUSE & GARDEN TOUR THANKS THE FOLLOWING FOR OPENING THEIR BEAUTIFUL HOMES

On Sunday, July 12, 2009

Anado McLauchlin & Richard Schultz
Jennifer & Bob Haas


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2nd Sunday in July for 2008 173 visitors on tour 

2nd Sunday in July for 2009 147 visitors on tour 

Year To Date 2008  5,440 visitors on tour 

Year To Date 2009 4,690 visitors on tour