GATHERING THE CREATIVES
Wine, dine and feel fine. Mérida’s outlanders are establishing deep roots
ON A SULTRY November afternoon in Mérida, Mexico, I sat with my friend David Serrano on the terrace of Apoala, a Mexicanfusion restaurant on the Plaza de Santa Lucia, tucking into Flores de Amarillo – zucchini blossoms stuffed with Oaxacan cheese – and peoplewatching.
David, a Mexican by birth and a Mérida resident by choice, deftly picked out the holidaymakers (in shorts, like myself, because of the heat) from the locals (in long pants, like David, because of the insects).
An elegant woman drifted over to say hello to David – Elena, he explained, a fashion designer from Milan. A few minutes later a couple, the husband leaning on a cane as a result of a riding accident, dropped by – Ralf and Yvonne, the Germans who run the Yucatán Polo Club.
After lunch we stopped at Ki’xocolatl – the chocolate store next to the restaurant run by two Belgians – and bumped into Carmen,
a painter from Mexico City, and Marcela, a Yucatecan artist.
So it goes in Mérida, the capital of Mexico’s Yucatán state and a magnet for creative souls from both sides of the border and beyond.
They come from the US and Canada, Mexico City and Europe, lured by the city’s un-disneyfied Mayan and colonial heritage. Among the expats: artists James Brown and Jorge Pardo, designers Laura Kirar and Marjorie Skouras, and chefs Jeremiah Tower and (until his death in 2016) David Sterling. Just don’t call it the next
San Miguel de Allende.
“People go to San Miguel to retire,” David, acting as my host and tour guide during my first visit to the city, said. “Here you come to work.”
Our taxi driver, Israel, a Yucatecan of Lebanese descent, cranked up the air conditioning as he negotiated the narrow streets lined with tall colonial houses in sherbet colours to David’s place.
We had spent the morning driving around the centro historico. Mérida, named for the ancient Spanish city, was founded in 1542 by the conquistador Francisco de Montejo y Leon on the site of the Maya city of T’ho. On La
Plaza Grande (the main square)
David pointed out the Catedral de San Ildefonso and the Casa de Montejo, constructed of stone from the ancient pyramids and temples, dripping with Renaissance ornamentation. “You see the Roman influence, just as there was the Roman influence in Mérida, Spain,” David said. “The French came later.”
On cue, Israel had turned up the Paseo de Montejo, the city’s main artery, and suddenly we were surrounded by palm-shaded mansions in the Beaux-arts style – the trophy homes of the 18th- and 19th-century millionaires who made their fortunes producing henequen (or sisal) from the agave plant. The rich Yucatecans rejected Hispanic culture in favour of all things French, and Paseo de Montejo bears more than a passing resemblance to a street in old New Orleans.
The 200-year-old pale blue house in the Santiago barrio that David and his partner, Robert Willson, bought a few years ago features high ceilings and boldly patterned concrete tile floors, terracotta sphinxes and
French chairs made of steel and twine. The scent of plumeria wafts from the courtyard, where a Piranesiinspired mural overlooks a pool.
I repaired to my guest room, settling in for a siesta on the steel canopy bed. When I awoke my room was dark, and rain pelted the roof – a steady, cooling volley.
CROSSING FRONTIERS
The next morning we set off for the ruins of Uxmal, a Maya city 80km south of Mérida, known for its ornate Puuc-style architecture and its fine state of preservation.
Uxmal, population 20 000, was founded about AD500 by Chac
Uitzil Hun, I learned from my guide, Fabio, a Yucatecan with a mouth full of gold and a wicked sense of humour. We made our way around the Pyramid of the Magician, the site’s tallest structure, to the grasscovered Ballcourt. Competitions here generally concluded with a human sacrifice, Fabio said.
After touring the oldest remnants of Yucatán civilization, we set out for its newest frontier. Many of the affluent Mexicans moving to Mérida are settling not in centuries-old casas in town or haciendas in the country but in the new suburbs of el norte – a long swath of gated communities and giant malls. Our destination was a restaurant called Tatemar in Plaza La Isla, a just-opened 180-store mall.
Carlos Arnaud, who owns the Oaxacan-flavoured Tatemar with his sister Sara, steered us to a table overlooking La Isla’s artificial lake and handled the ordering: grouper with guacamole, octopus with maize purée, pork and shrimp tacos.
Meals can go on for hours here. When we left the mall the sun was sinking below a stand of tamarind trees. Suddenly there was an explosion of bird chatter – the evening song of blackbirds known locally as X’kau – a reminder that, for all the golf courses and Porsche dealerships, we were still in the jungle.
THE WAGES OF PROGRESS
Among Mérida’s best exhibition spaces, Lagalá, Galeria La Eskalera, the Fundacion de Artistas, and Centro Cultural La Cupula are all in the centro historico. La Cupula, a sprawling garden-linked complex, hosts music, dance and theatre performances as well as exhibitions.
We had been asked to lunch at the country hacienda of Laura Kirar, the designer, and her husband, Richard Frazier. So we picked up a roasted chicken at a roadside stand, and Israel navigated narrow village roads lined with shacks in taffy colours and teeming with mototaxis, pedestrians and dogs.
Hacienda Subin is a crumbling 18th- and 19th-century Moorishstyle compound on 40 acres in the jungle. Like other haciendas in the area it was once part of a sisal farm.
Dozens of the sisal haciendas outside Mérida have been renovated as resorts. One of the newest and poshest is the Chablé Resort and
Spa, in Chocholá – 38 modern casitas, each with its own pool and hammock, on the jungled grounds of the former henequen estate Hacienda San Antonio Chablé. As for Hacienda Subin, Richard and Laura are renovating its factory building as a space for community events.
Expat colonies can be insular, but Mérida’s outlanders are establishing deep roots here. On our way back to the city we stopped at Plantel Matilde, an arts centre rising like a modern acropolis in the middle of the jungle. Conceived by Mexico City sculptor Javier Marin, Matilde serves as a campus for international art students and local schoolchildren as well as a studio and exhibition space for the artist.
After a full day, my host had planned a casual dinner in town.
But this was Mérida: the meal, at a simple cantina called Catrin, was a long, festive, Mezcal-fuelled affair. Richard and Laura showed up, as did Marcela, a sisal sculptor. There was Jason, an artist from Chicago, and Kate, from Poland, who did hair, and Ross, from New York, who works in real estate.
The conversation returned to Mérida’s recent growth. Not everyone shared David’s and Carlos’ enthusiasm for the changes. But Laura opined that anybody looking for “a good place to be creative” still couldn’t do better than Mérida – a point disputed by no one.