The August 2015 Architectural Digest, in its U.S. edition, highlights a Centro renovation that was undertaken by two Los Angeles designers.
Robert Willson and David Serrano conjured “an idiosyncratic tropical paradise,” said the article by Mayer Rus with photographs by Tim Street-Porter, both noted design journalists.
Willson and Serrano say they have been “squirreling things away for this house forever,” and they are in a good position to do so, being owners of Downtown, the “fabulously eclectic” Los Angeles showroom.
Rus took note of the “engagingly kaleidoscopic settings,” the “mural copied from a Piranesi engraving of architectural tools,” “a stately Empire sofa swathed in lime-green tiger-stripe velvet, massive Italian terra-cotta sphinxes,” and “a Venetian grotto chair that brings to mind Björk’s infamous swan dress.”
Like many, the couple was inspired by an episode of HGTV’s House Hunters International to start a new chapter in Mérida. They join other noted creative stars, such as celebrity chef Jeremiah Tower, Manhattan interior designer Laura Kirar, and artists James Brown and Jorge Pardo.
Serrano was born in Mexico and now resides in Mérida year-round; Willson shuttles back and forth to the store in Los Angeles.
