Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2024 i Veranda

BREEZY SAVOIR FAIRE IN CABO SAN LUCAS Basket weave openwork, embroidery-like stripes, and rosy fringe bring all the couture details. SANTA BARBARA’S ALL-AMERICAN EASE The oenophile’s easy chair: thick, large-scale woven wicker in curved, stay-all-day silhouettes. Cue the swirl of the Syrah; the tasting room is open. PORTOFINO’S SUNNY GREETING A warmer welcome than the painted houses striping the Italian harbor? This limoncello bench with the grooviest geo-chic cushion. LEAFY PHILIPPINES LOUNGING An asymmetrical chaise drops major 1970s rattan vibes—and a boldness that sits nicely with the islands’ intense vegetation. TULUM’S TROPICAL COOL Folk art–inspired tule updates the classic equipal chair, rounding out the jungle magic of Riviera Maya. PORTUGAL’S PALATIAL SOIREE SCENE On the guest lists for the glamorous feasts lighting up cliffside gardens: graphic cushion patterns that echo…

WHAT’S THAT OVER THERE?” asked Michelle Nussbaumer, pointing to a “giant crumbling thing” across from a property her real estate broker had been showing her in San Miguel de Allende. She was standing on a rooftop terrace when she spotted the stone rubble languishing amid mature mesquite trees and 20-foot-tall piles of garbage. Her intrigue was immediate. The agent had been showing her newly constructed homes, but Nussbaumer wanted none of it. For this Dallas-based interior designer and intrepid gardener, the more distressed and dilapidated, the better. It turns out the sprawling hacienda she spotted from afar dated from the 1600s and 1700s and had been deacquisitioned by the church and uninhabited for decades. Nussbaumer returned that evening, climbing over a wall for a closer look, only to become more…

A MID 60 ACRES OF JUNGLE stood a stately, crumbling hacienda, a portico of Moorish arches stretching out 120 feet. When the new owners closed their eyes, they could see the flickering tea lights and billowing white curtains, hear the din of chatter and laughter at a long table, feel a dog brush by underneath. That would all come to fruition, but first it would have to stop raining. When the dry season arrived in the Yucatán, designer Laura Kirar and her husband, Richard Frazier, would see more clearly the Mérida, Mexico, hacienda they had purchased—that’s when the local bushwhackers could nip at the heavy foliage and address the trees that had taken hold of some rooms. Together, peering into the home’s chapel, the eldest of the locals spoke up.…

LAST YEAR I had the pleasure of visiting one of the great culture capitals of the world: Mexico City. My pair of field trips—one to visit the new Alfonso Marina showroom (see page 63) and tour the family-owned furniture maker’s factory, and again with the Design Leadership Network for its annual summit—opened my eyes to a fertile design milieu. There, the distinctions between fine and decorative arts, between disciplines like architecture and interiors, even between cuisine and couture are not just blurred but irrelevant, shrugged off as an exercise in futility. It’s all culture—and it’s electric. Unable to cast aside the contagion of creativity, I came home from my second CDMX pilgrimage with new resolve: We would jettison our planned summer 2024 issue for one that would shine a spotlight…

THE CAFTAN HUNTER SURREAL MIGHT BEST DESCRIBE Marjorie Skouras (opposite), a fourth-generation Californian and home furnishings designer, who lives like a modern Isak Dinesen in the Mexican Yucatán. When she and Bruno Bardavid bought their first house in Mérida, Skouras began exploring vintage Mexican dresses. It wasn’t her first foray. “As a teenager in 1970s Los Angeles, the coolest outfit to wear to a dance was an embroidered Oaxacan dress with ribbons in your hair and Top-Siders,” Skouras says. Late-night eBay searches led to “a beautiful black Victor Camarena caftan appliquéd with blown-up poppies in great colors,” she says, noting that his Bazaar D’Mama Carlota Sunburst caftan is “the holy grail dress for collectors.” Other favorite designers include Josefa Ibarra and Roberta Vercellino y Luis. “My focus is on resort…

TWO HANDWOVEN BASKETS, with handles of emerald green, are examples of tejido de palma (palm weaving), a living Oaxacan tradition dating back a millennium. Maestro (master) artisan Juan Garcia Mendoza, a weaver based in San Pedro Jocotipac, crafted these pieces as a bespoke commission for Toronto-based interior designer Gillian Gillies. The collaboration was catalyzed by the designer’s transformative visit to Oaxaca last year, when she met Vera Claire, founder of Cosa Buena (Good Thing), a multifaced endeavor encompassing a design consultancy, regenerative travel company, and nonprofit foundation. One of Cosa Buena’s core projects is connecting indigenous artisans and interior designers to develop exquisite custom pieces. A seat of Mexico’s cultural heritage, Oaxaca is home to 19 indigenous groups—including Zapotec, Mixtec, Amuzgo, and Chatino—many of whom practice traditional art forms that…

DAY BREAK’S DUSTY PINKS Like a mystical haze hovering above the rocky, arid terrain, a halo of Indian ricegrass rises from a textural clay vase born of the pottery-rich town of Tonalá. Deep burgundy shrimp plant and coral mandevilla flourish among Queen of the Night cacti, sun-bleached bracken fern, and beaked yucca. Luna vase, Hoppe Shoppe NOCTURNAL BLUES At day’s end native fan palm and leggy chaparral yucca become evergreen fortresses for birds like cactus wrens. Arranged in a contemporary Zapotec-made vase with pale blue Amsonia—like stars lighting the desert sky—nightfall closes in. Woman Arms vase, RRRES HIGH NOON FIREWORKS Scarlet hummingbird’s trumpet, orange caliche globemallow, and golden columbine pop with vivid subtropical color, mirroring the intensity of the region’s midday heat. In a hand-turned clay vase, their blooms burst…

DECORATORS OFTEN DECIDE ON A ‘HOUSE WHITE,’” says Chicago-based interior designer Summer Thornton. It’s typically the color of the trim, doors, and ceiling, she notes—a neutral equalizer. But in the case of Casa Rosada, the vacation home she and her husband, Josh, built in Sayulita, Mexico, the house white is pink. “It automatically puts you in this fantasy realm,” says Summer. And she is exactly the type of artist and out-of-the-box adventurer the vibrant town of Sayulita attracts. Surrounded by mountains and jungle on one side and the blue-green Pacific on the other, “it’s a place that invites you to lose yourself and follow your dreams,” she adds. Her dream: to design and build an oceanfront tropical home for her family’s vacations, yes, but also to offer as an innovative,…

Could this home have been incanted? Invoked with charged carnelian and a smudge of ember? With its interior afterglow, the Mexico City home of Andrew Fisher and Jeffry Weisman has an aura of enchantment. It was, in fact, summoned by the designers from a blank space: a newly built condominium in the city’s cosmopolitan Polanco neighborhood. Now, transformed by Fisher’s celestial sculptures, the couple’s artisanal collections, and the presence of red—ruby red, Rufino Tamayo red—in every room, it incarnates the couple’s passion for design. Fisher and Weisman have lived part-time in Mexico since 2011, when they first acquired a San Miguel de Allende home that was originally an 18th-century industrial building. Cofounders of Fisher Weisman Brugioni, the esteemed San Francisco–based interiors firm, they established a working base in San Miguel…

ATMOSPHERE OF EXUBERANCE Pages 22–23 Arbol de la vida candle, 100% Silk. Antique Rosary beads, Lolo French Antiques. Page 26 Antique Spanish trestle table, Maison de France Antiques. BLANKETED IN STRIPES Page 34 French Henri II bureau, Lolo French Antiques. Vintage terra-cotta pottery, Stash. Page 35 Early 19th-century Portuguese table lamp, Still Johnson. Ignis Glass 2 Prunt tumbler, Mosaic Home. 18th-century solid walnut Spanish side table, Lolo French Antiques. Washed linen core sheet set and Linen quilt, Brooklinen. ROSADA REVERIE Interior design: Summer Thornton; summerthorntondesign.com. Architecture: Enrique García; enriquegarcia.mx. Landscape design: Jorge del Real. Reservations: casarosadasayulita.com. Pages 80–81 (section opener) Coffee tables: Mestiz; mestiz.mx. Rattan lounge chair: Balsa; balsa.mx. Gold lamp and metal benches: Casamidy; casamidy.com. Rattan lounge chair cushion fabric: S. Harris; fabricut.com. Terra-cotta side table and fluted side table:…

GROUNDING INFLUENCE Pierre Frey’s wide bayadere stripes (above, on cushion) draw upon the flatweave kilim rugs of Turkey, with rich red, caramel, and green banding. BACK TO THE CLASSICS Horses march across Gastón y Daniela’s cotton jacquard (left and right, on canopies) inspired by a 5th-century BCE Greek krater; Kit Kemp’s carnival of geometrics channels Aztec artistry.…

FIT FOR A QUEEN Historically, carved turquoise was used for sacred and decorative objects; here, a mix of emeralds, enamel, and diamonds elevates the vivid stones to high jewelry. RING OF GOLD With sculpted gold and an eye-catching turquoise bead, Belperron’s Tornade Torque necklace has all the elements of a ceremonial gem. ORGANIC INTRIGUE Subtle color variations and “veins” left by mineral deposits bring a sense of age and refinement to a strand of Turquoise Nugget beads by Seaman Schepps.…

FOR THE CONTEMPORARY CULTURIST LagoAlgo “Foretelling today’s trend in food as art form, OMR gallery owner Cristobal Riestra has created a ground-breaking restaurant/exploratory art space in a modernist building in Chapultepec Park.” lago-algo.mx kurimanzutto “A powerhouse—one of the top contemporary art galleries in the city, with very significant exhibitions featuring Mexican artists. It’s a can’t-miss for any art tour.” kurimanzutto.com MASA “Engaging the line between art and design, MASA presents aesthetically driven shows merging culture with art. It feels exciting and experimental to be in their space with its high Spanish ceilings and stucco walls.” mmaassaa.com FOR THE TIRELESS MODERNIST Casa Gilardi “Architect Luis Barragán was a color theorist who did incredible things juxtaposing vibrant shades and geometric forms. That’s on full display in this mid-1970s house he designed…

IN SOME WAYS, a house is a container for people and their objects. But it’s also a repository of culture, history, memories, and craftsmanship. For designer Raúl Cabra, these intangibles are the real treasures held within the three-foot-thick stone walls of Ex-Hacienda Guadalupe, a property he bought with husband Michael Sledge in 2007. Thought to date to the 1700s, the house’s precise history is unknown: At one point it was a pig farm. By the time Cabra and Sledge acquired it, it had been half-empty for 60 years. (It’s called “ex”-hacienda because most of its acreage was redistributed during Mexican land reform.) “After we bought it, Michael would say to our friends back in the States, ‘We are now the proud owners of a pile of rocks in the middle of…