House & Garden Tour
By Jennifer Hamilton August 8, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Water wall, Cuban lithographs and the unlikely lavender queen

House & Garden Tour
Sun, Aug 10, noon
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
US$15 or 150 pesos
Breakfast at Café Santa Ana starting at 9am

1. Visitors are greeted with views of the gardens and house built on several easily accessible levels. A brick pathway bordered with pebbles leads to two offices and then to the house itself. Visitors see a water-wall at the entranceway and a 10-foot cascade of water in front of the house. Lush gardens planted with native species surround stone pathways filled with baby-tear grasses. The sizeable outside ramada facing the lovely garden is perfect for outside dining and watching San Miguel’s spectacular sunsets. The living room with 14-foot ceilings contains a dramatic sculpture in one corner, comfortable leather sofas and chairs and three dramatic lithographs by an art professor originally from Cuba. Most of the other artwork is from Oaxaca, Michoacán and Guanajuato. Behind the living room is a spacious onyx bar and a sculptural wood armoire rests along the wall between it and the living room. Around the freestanding double fireplace and through the dining room with its custom-designed square table and massiv
e contemporary painting is the spacious kitchen, containing granite countertops and a sizeable island. From the wide kitchen window one can see an ancient mesquite tree hung with tin star lamps which was on the property when the owners purchased it. Floors are of brown cantera limestone and square tragaluces in the ceilings add even more light to the home. The romantic bedroom is flooded with light from whence one can see the garden and sunsets over the Guanajuato mountains. One can enjoy San Miguel’s temperate summer evenings from the bedroom’s porch. The rooftop affords 360º views over the golf course, the Picacho Mountains and most of San Miguel’s church domes. 

2. Sanmiguelenses have long been fascinated by the dazzling wall surrounding this exquisite home. A previous owner was the only Mexican-American to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. Now the home is filled with dazzling photographs taken by one of the owners, a National Geographic photographer. The old stone stairwell leading to the roof is used mainly by their young sons. The romantic master bedroom was a tienda for several years and opens to the living room with its striking bóveda ceiling and carved fireplace. The living room contains an ancient trunk from Tibet, an old saddlebag from Morocco, a palm reader’s sign from India and other treasures from their world travels. An outdoor ramada faces the resplendent garden with its impressive fountain and carved cantera fireplace. A casita in the back was once a chapel; the original buttresses can be seen at the rear. The studio was originally a garage and is backed by a wall of órganos cacti. Another office upstairs is where the owner wrote her delightful mem
oir, The Unlikely Lavender Queen.