Architecture Wednesday: Casa Huolpoch

I am all about retiring to Merida, Mexico when the time comes, though I still need to convince Carlos, and when I do I want something like Casa Huolpoch.

Casa Huolpoch is an old Yucatecan house from the end of the 1900s that gets its name from a snake that regularly “visited” the property's ruins—this snake reference might make Carlos refuse this home outright. Behind its colonial facade, the house has four bedrooms and a studio apartment in 3400 square feet—this also might be a bit too large for Carlos.

In the entry hall, living area, you find an old cast iron lamp hanging from the original metal beams that together with the white wooden beams embellish the high ceilings of the residence. The living room aso features a gray pasta tile “carpet”—pasta tiles are made in molds into which bits of colored cement paste are poured after which a solid-colored cement is poured as backing—surrounded by an antique white floor border that joins the kitchen and dining room through three old colonial doors that were found on-site and reused, preserving their character and its historical value.

Next up is the kitchen and dining area, with pasta tile and white quartz, has a reinterpretation of the old Yucatecan hoods above the stove. The dining room is connected to the terrace through a sliding glass door, generating a feeling of indoor-outdoor living, with a pool just beyond the covered terrace.

The chukum pool—chukum is a resin obtained from the bark of the chukum tree that is blended with fine cement creating a salmon colored for the pool—sits in a central courtyard surrounded by the stone remains of an old colonial structure, where you find an outdoor eating area and outdoor kitchen. Follow the meandering stairs from the pool deck to the second floor and the guest bedrooms, while the primary suite is located on the first floor, with views from the bed through the yard and cross the pool.

Casa Huolpoch is that perfect blend of historical Yucatecan colonial architecture and modern design.

If it just wasn’t named after a snake …

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