Over 100 years ago, there were more millionaires per capita in Yucatán’s capital than in any other city in the world. The people are gone, but many of their city mansions and country haciendas remain.
Susana Ordovás’ vibrant Inside Yucatán: Hidden Mérida and Beyond will be released on April 30 by Vendome Press. Across 337 pages, 27 decadent residences — and, in some cases, their occupants — are captured by photographer Guido Taroni. Jesús Cisneros contributes three charming maps of the region for added context.
The book is divided into two parts: Town and Country. The town’s homes include views of artist Jorge Pardo’s bold contemporary space in Santa Ana and the fragile beauty of the historic Quinta Los Almendros, just outside the hotel zone. Haciendas include Subin and Tekik de Regil, two of the oldest surviving structures of their kind, each benefitting strongly from the intervention of imaginative owners.
The story of one estate — Hacienda Ualayceh in Abalá — is particularly poignant. The proud, decaying Abalá plantation house appears frozen in time, kept together by a man who, as a child, worked in its fields.
What the properties have in common is how well they hide themselves.
“Unlike other places in Mexico that flaunt their beauties to the world, Mérida’s true treasures lie concealed behind tall walls, hidden from prying eyes,” Ordovás says. “Each of these homes has been transformed by the magic of Yucatán, so much so that they could, indeed, exist nowhere else but here.”
Ordovás’ name may sound familiar. She wrote the forward to a May 2023 book by Mérida’s Newell Turner, a shelter magazine veteran. His Mexican: A Journey Through Design (See Yucatán Magazine Issue 9) comes from the same publisher. Inside Yucatán also follows a series of earlier books that ventured into Tangier and Milan with the same photographer.
An Irish-born writer living in Mexico City and Madrid, Ordovás contributes to Cabana and The World of Interiors.
Taroni, who lives in Milan, is also in Cabana and the book Safari Style.
About the book
‘Inside Yucatán: Hidden Mérida and Beyond’ (Vendome) by Susana Ordovás, Hardcover, 336 pages, US$75. Available April 30, 2024.
