What’s New & Enterprising
By Linda Lowery, July 7, 2006


Transplanted jewel: The creative Cynthia Price

Away from our roots, transplanted to a foreign country where we never imagined settling, who exactly are we? Just ask Cynthia Price, a San Miguel resident of three years, who moved here from Vermont, home of classic Americana landscapes—snowy barns, grassy spring hills and red-orange autumn maples.

“At this stage of our lives,” says the adventurous, 56-year-old Price, “we’re rooting in a place where we feel free to let our creative selves explode.” Price’s own creative explosion includes the expansion of her love of color, texture and balance into an entire hotel environment. She is the owner and innkeeper of Casa Quetzal, the elegant boutique hotel at Hospicio 34, which she bought in 2003. Coming from a background as a professional artist and teacher, no one was more shocked at the purchase than the blonde, spiky-haired Price herself.

On one hand, Price claims she had no idea what she was doing, diving into the on-call world of hotel renovation, guest hosting and elegant food service. “It’s like having a baby,” she explains. “You don’t know what the heck you’re getting yourself into.”

On the other hand, she is a perfect fit. One visit to Casa Quetzal makes it clear that Price is a concierge extraordinaria, easily switching between Spanish and English, sharing her enthusiasm for San Miguel with passion, sending her guests off with return reservations for next year.

Most of the paintings on the lobby walls and in the suites are her own. She doesn’t have to practice “The Artist’s Way”—she’s lived it since she was little. Her mother, Jan Erb, is a painter, and when Price would come home from school, her mom’s easel was set up in the kitchen. “Art was demystified for me from an early age,” she says. 

But she agrees with Picasso, who believed you can’t be free until you learn discipline. After college, she worked as a librarian in charge of programs for young readers, and she became enamored of children’s books. Her first serious and professional attempt at art-making was through that medium. She studied color separation with Robert Quackenbush, the well-known children’s book illustrator, and went on to earn an MFA from Vermont College. 

For years, she taught drawing and painting to adult students. “I can teach anyone to draw,” says Price, not bragging, simply stating fact. “I like to tell students ‘If you can’t draw a straight line, take my class.’”

Price’s artwork is also displayed in galleries in the United States—from Stowe, Vermont, to Cincinnati, Ohio, to Bozeman, Montana. Her paintings and giclées are soft and a twinge surrealistic. They are rooted in the Vermont landscape, but leap from there into imaginative flight and saturated colors. She paints barns on wheels, rumbling through rolling New England hills. Barns with wings, soaring through narrow canyons. Sweet little girls, plastic inner tubes around their waists, splashing in the swimming hole.

Price was visiting Umbria, Italy—painting, of course—on 9/11. She returned to the US shortly after and found the whole atmosphere in the country had changed from the devastating event. 

“Nobody was buying art,” she says. Feeling she needed to make a geographic change, she was drawn to San Miguel, although she’d never before consciously considered living in Mexico.

“Moving here is a Karmic experience,” says Price, who finds the Mexican culture to be an excellent teacher. “Whatever you haven’t learned in life, you’ll be learning now,” she warns, laughing. You learn patience. And you develop a keen sense of humor. You learn to live with life’s dualities. Says Price: “I’ve never been happier or more challenged.” 

Price describes Casa Quetzal as a “happy hybrid.” The garden entrance is beautifully Mexican, lush with palms and bougainvillea, geraniums and rocky steps. The guest suites reflect international influences, including those of the Far East and the Pacific Rim. Two have an Asian theme and are called Karma and Zen. The Diego and Frida suites can be appropriately opened up to make adjoining accommodations.

Price’s informal and gracious personality permeates the place. “Because we’re so small, we can provide a level of attention that’s not offered in larger hotels,” she says. There are amenities like coffeemakers in every room, full gourmet breakfasts, no-charge photocopies and faxes, laundry and pressing service for longer stays. There are in-suite services: massages, manicures and pedicures. And each room is supplied with beauty products by Mazunte, an ecologically based company that protects the marine life of Oaxaca.

Her newest creative project is the four-room Casita Quetzal, which she calls her “jewel box,” right around the corner from Casa Quetzal. Painted in tones of topaz, ruby, amethyst and turquoise, “it is now my newest big canvas,” says Price. With a 360-degree view from the terrace where she’ll not only host guests but also run artists’ workshops, the Casita Quetzal is geared to the economically minded, with prices starting at 800 pesos per night. 

Price loves the eclectic mix of her guests, which is always a surprise. In 2002, her first Christmas as a hotel owner, she hosted the Villa family (yes, all descendants of Pancho). They closed the heavy entry door, leaned one of the kids’ tricycles up against it, and enjoyed Casa Quetzal as their own holiday home, complete with a piñata, an elegant dinner, and Christmas Eve gifts opened at midnight. There have been many champagne-toasted engagements, weddings, anniversaries, family reunions and clandestine trysts. 

And now comes the Grand Opening of Price’s “Jewel Box.” On Thursday, July 13, she’s inviting the San Miguel community to join her in the unveiling of her newest work of art—Casita Quetzal—with a colorful history yet to be written. Beverages and light botanas will be served, and Price’s painting will be on display and available for purchase.

Grand opening Casita Quetzal
Thursday, July 13, 5–8pm, Recreo 21B, 152-0501