HOUSE TOUR: A Traditional Spanish Style House near Pto. Vallerta.

LOCATION: Mezcales, Nyrurit, 10 km north of Puerto Vallarta

SIZE: 4,700 square ft space + the garden

4 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms

Barry Campbell, Director of Operations, SF Design Center

Lauren Campbell, Artist

Bear & Lauren worked with SF architect LEO CALZADILLA to design their traditional Spanish Style home, just 20 minutes from the Pto. Vallarta Airport. It feels old world in its scale and use of local, artisan crafted materials and finishes. The many floor to ceiling windows, tall doors, marble staircase, wrought iron railings, whirling ceiling fans, vistas overlooking palm trees and the not too distant sounds of the rain forest all add up to an exotic getaway south of the border.

After the location was chosen, in a new development, surrounded on three sides by tropical rain forest in the pueblo of Mezcales, (in the State of Nayarit) their journey to build a home began. They broke ground in 2007. 

The owners are close to retiring from the San Francisco Bay area, and have been traveling back and forth for years to Mexico. They chose this location as it is located right next to a tropical rain forest and also in the part of town where the local Mexicans live, just ten miles from Puerto Vallarta.  The house is in a private, gated community , originally owned by Dynamica, one of the largest construction companies in Mexico. The utilities are all underground.  

After the foundation was completed Lauren served as the general contractor. She oversaw the construction of the house for two years and lived in the small, local town while the workers slept in the house.

EXTERIOR

The house is a concrete structure resembling adobe with ceramic roof tiles, decorative columns, terraces, and a mosaic tiled cupola.  They are the only homeowners in the complex with a garage.

CUPOLA & TILES

The cupola structure, with its now brilliant turquoise mosaics, was hard to find. They found it at Francesco Via in Puerto Vallarta.  The arched clay tiles on the roof serve as frequent havens for bats.

Lauren had 8 workers for 10 days working on the garden walls and pathways.  They thought she was crazy when they were first breaking up the tiles. She went on a scavenger hunt all over Pto. Vallerta to find all the tiles.  The circle tiles were from Bucerias with the majority from http://www.azulejosdelmundo.com/ 

Lauren designed the walkways by drawing lines where the rain naturally flowed. There is a bodega where the water is buried underground.

ORCHIDS

Lauren and Barry are avid orchid collectors and have amassed quite a collection over the years. The orchids in their garden were gathered from the jungle or found at local nurseries. 

POOL HOUSE

MASTER BEDROOM

GUESTROOM

Many of the furnishings, and embroidered and woven textiles that adorn the house, are from local artisans. 

DOORS

There are 19 hand carved interior wooden doors, all from a local store in Puerto Vallarta. The artist was from Iran.

The front doors are from Tlaquepaque (in Guadalajara), a town famous for its paper mache dolls. The tables, chairs and door are made from Perota wood that is termite resistant. 

The front door, originally intended for the Mayan Palace Hotel were made the wrong size, so she bought them for the house.

STAIRWELL

Inspired by the wrought iron artistry at Las Flores Beach Resort, they commissioned a local artist from Mezcales to make the two gates, balconies and stairwells.

KITCHEN

It took 8 months to receive the Home Depot cabinets for the house.  Caught up in a hurricane en route, they were completely drenched and they literally had to pour the water out of them.   

The granite on the kitchen island is Brazilian granite and has some fossilized ferns in it.  They were wishing the black granite had been honed rather than polished for upkeep.

The carpenter who built their dining table and other furnishings recently had to rebuild their kitchen cabinets, replacing the plywood boxes with cedar and local hardwoods that resist termites.  Fortunately the termites didn’t like the cherry wood faces to the cabinets. 

STUDIO

Lauren’s creative space where she is currently making a larger than life Virgin de Guadalupe out of glass mosaic pieces and found objects. Here are a few stages of her work, showing progress of this larger than life relief.  This will ultimately be mounted on the exterior wall by the entry to the house.

LIVING ROOM

BATHROOMS

There are 5 bathrooms in the house.  They all have glass shower doors, marble sinks, and cherry wooden cabinetry from Home Depot. 

The marble used in the bathrooms and niches is also from Home Depot; made in MN, shipped to Texas and apparently was a paperwork nightmare.

ELECTRICAL

Because the wires were underground, the problems they had were mainly due to loose connections that took some time to figure out.  The air conditioning in one of the rooms had a leak caused by the contractor securing the refrigerant lines to rebar reinforcement in the walls. The line had to be chipped out of the wall and replaced.

It took 3 months to get a phone and two years before they had reliable wifi.

PLUMBING

They had some plumbing issues in the kitchen that they later determined were due to the hot water pipes not being glued together.

It really takes a certain strength of character to endure a project of this magnitude in a foreign country.

When asked if they would suggest others build their second home in Mexico, Lauren replied, “I wouldn’t recommend it.”