If you live in the South, you know that Easter arrives during the annual Season of Yellow, something those in the north experience too, though perhaps with a little less theatrical flair. The cars are yellow, the porch railings are yellow, the outdoor furniture is yellow, and even the black mailbox at the end of the driveway gets included. One evening my lovely pearl-white car is perfectly clean, and by morning it looks as though someone stood over it shaking a giant jar of turmeric.  

 

People walk around with allergy eyes and the dogs are scratching loudly enough that I can hear the thump-thump-thumping from the next room in the middle of the night. Trees release clouds of pollen like botanical fireworks. It is messy, irritating, and impossible to control. By the time we notice it, the whole process is already well underway.

 
And all this reminds me of something interesting about the Easter story. It is this – that the Resurrection happened before anyone believed it. The women who went to the tomb were not expecting a miracle. They were simply going to take care of a body. When they tried to tell the others what they had seen, the disciples didn’t believe them. Thomas refused outright. In other words, the most astonishing event in the Christian story had already taken place: Jesus had risen from the dead, while the people who loved him were still living in grief, confusion, and doubt. In the midst of all that, life had already broken through! Hallelujah! 

 

It seems to me, looking back, that many meaningful chapters of my life began long before I understood what they would become. Casa Alfaro is one of them.

 

Several years ago, my daughter Bess had found, in disrepair, an enchanting historic residence in central Mexico near San Miguel de Allende, ready for restoration, beautification, and expansion. She has an extraordinary eye for design: for color, art, and most of all, pizzazz, (a common theme running through her life).  Lee, my son-in-law, has a remarkable ability to see the bigger possibilities of most everything, and somehow make them happen. Consistently!  What might seem unimaginable to most people becomes something he calmly sets in motion and brings into reality. Together, they envisioned not simply restoring an old property but uncovering what it could become in so many peripheral ways. 

 

What made the whole adventure such a delight was the way Bess and I worked together. We have always had an easy affection for one another’s abilities, and because design has been part of my life for many years, it felt natural for us to fall into an easy rhythm of ideas and discoveries as the house began to take shape. During those years it seemed that one lovely discovery after another about our shared instincts and sensibilities was unfolding before us.

 

Within that unfolding vision, I became deeply involved in the project, discovering artisans, working through designs with Bess, and the two of us shaping the details that would give the house its character. On any given trip down there, I would arrive with my carry-on holding four binders thick with drawings, plans, and notes indexed room by room, plus a suitcase holding a set of vintage drapes, yards of embroidery and fabrics collected over the years, an antique bedspread soon to become a wall hanging, a piece of art, (sometimes carefully folded and in need of framing by our Bonifacio) or the lace table overlays made for me while serving in the Peace Corps. My luggage rarely contained anything sensible.

 

We knew the house would be beautiful and a place for so many lovely gatherings, but we had no idea what all would be gained in the process. The spirit of the place was being reborn. Padre Luis Felipe Neri de Alfaro, for whom the house was named, lived there in the early 1700s as he constructed the nearby Santuario, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Through countless hours of research and consultations, we learned much about the house, the area, the people of Atotonilco and the surrounding communities, and found ourselves connecting with enormously talented people, local artisans who joined in the work, bringing the masterful skills that would return the place to its original glory and then add to it, creating a spacious, peaceful environment full of color, warmth, and artistry.

 

Architect Armando Delgado strikes you immediately as sophisticated in both thought and style (and so handsome!). Deeply knowledgeable, he carefully studied the old walls, the passages, and the proportions of rooms that had served different purposes over the years. From that study he developed a large and intricately layered plan that allowed the historic structure itself to guide what the house would become, refining it with Bess and Lee as the vision for the house took shape.

 

Existing thick stone walls were strengthened rather than replaced, and they suggested new configurations of rooms. Some passages remained, some new passages were created, and new rooms were added where the architecture invited them. Armando’s vision gave the house its clarity, and one by one, with his expertise, his team, his workers, made it what it is today.

 

Ángel, the contractor – a can-do man with a generous spirit and deep expertise in his field – led the workers and conferred closely with us, listening carefully to every detail we hoped to accomplish, taking notes, and even made sketches for me when my Spanish abilities would desert me. Don Ricardo worked alongside him, and the two of them functioned beautifully as a team, making sure everyone understood one another and that things were done according to our desires.  

 

What I remember most, though, is the delight the workers took in what they were doing. The men were often singing or whistling to music as they worked, and jokes being called from one room to another, followed by so much laughter. I would kneel down to ask about whatever intricate detail was unfolding in front of me in any given area, and a kindhearted gentleman – obviously an expert at his craft – would stand up, brush off his hands, tug his pants back into place, explaining with great seriousness and pride exactly what he was doing and why. Sometimes we would laugh together, I’d dance a jig and we’d celebrate the beauty in the middle of the dust and tools. Often two or three of them would chuckle and come over to help me up after one of my kneeling conversations. Over time they became not simply workers on a project, but friends who knew how much I appreciated them as people.

 

Artistry unfolded in the details: Ishmael placing pieces of stone one by one in a herringbone pattern inside the fireplace, Marcelo creating a wall so smooth that when you run your hand across it, it hardly feels like a wall at all. You simply want to touch it again just to feel what he has accomplished.

 

Concepción, a slender albañil who worked each day in jeans, boots, and a cowboy hat, has a laid-back air about him, naturally suave, I’d say. He’d carefully think about the size, the color, and the shape as he sorted stones with his ayudante so that each one, placed just so, would match the historic sections of the house.

 

Christhian sponge-painted walls and reproduced my sketches, painting scrolls, flourishes, and volutes along each viga in the ceiling of the Juanita suite. Ricardo, a decorative artist, later added many floral motifs and medallions, along with delicate gold-leaf dots and swirls. The eye rises now through this lush busyness to the high windows looking toward El Santuario in the pueblo of Atotonilco.

 

That same Ricardo is responsible for some of the most memorable decorative artistry in the house. His hand can be seen in the elegant gold-leafed and filigreed Boveda ceiling of a half bath, and perhaps most strikingly in the archway where oversized Otomí birds and deer, butterflies and rabbits run across the Boveda ceiling in the loveliest combinations of color. His whimsical birds appear again and again throughout the house, along with his chic, painted design at the bar, in the Jardín Recámara, and on various pieces of furniture that have become little jewels within various rooms. When the bells ring across the pueblo, the whole experience feels as though the spirit of the place is pouring over you – the joy and satisfaction of his and the many other artful souls who made the house what it became.

 

Yet the life of the house did not end with the completion of the renovation. Antonio, such an admirable and valuable part of this picture, brought his expertise as a property manager and somehow seemed to know the answer before a question was fully asked. Through his guidance,  the house came alive with the right people: Modesta our popular and talented chef, lovely Laura who keeps everything beautiful and clean with great diligence, with sweet Lucy and Maria Elena working alongside her. Antonio navigates the constant logistics and decision-making that allow the house to run smoothly day and night. The staff are always joyful, exhibiting a natural hospitality that seems to course through their veins.

 

Don Ricardo, who had been such a blessing during the remodelación, continues to care for the house and maintain its beauty now, long after the renovation has been completed. He has also provided gifts we never expected. He has an uncanny ability to recognize the saints depicted in paintings and sculptures, easily identifying them by the smallest details. He is also something of an expert on birds. When our little parakeet Kiwi was nearly killed by the neighborhood’s mustachioed cat, Don Ricardo carefully tended to him until he recovered. Kiwi not only survived, but later, he and Sarah became the proud parakeet parents of two tiny baby birdlets, one soft yellow, the other, sky blue. After one of the babies fled in fear and the cat succeeded in killing the other, Don Ricardo moved our large and ornate birdcage from the outdoor portal to an inside spot. Today, it sits in the historic Sala Estancia, where the couple live quite happily under watchful eyes, and we look forward to another clutch of baby birds. Don Ricardo says we should expect many. 

 

Standing there, you begin to realize that what you feel in the house did not appear suddenly when the project was finished. It had already been taking shape long before anyone could quite see it, forming through those three and a half years of devotion and excellent craftsmanship. 

 

But Casa Alfaro’s remodelación is only the beginning of telling this enormous story, a story of love and light and creativity, a story about the resurrection of a place in the pueblo of Atotonilco outside San Miguel de Allende, a story about the coming together of a family: Bess, Lee, and me, working as a team to unearth and restore the beauty that had been waiting there all along.

 

Standing in a place like Casa Alfaro, surrounded by the artistry of so many hands, it can feel like a small glimpse of that larger truth. People often stop and tell us, quite earnestly, that they can feel something there. Care and devotion shaped the house, and the generosity of spirit people brought to the work of bringing it back to life, is palpable. It seems to linger in the rooms and the courtyards in a way that is difficult to explain but easy to recognize. It’s lovely.

 
The resurrection opens a story rather than ending one. And often, we only begin to understand it after the new life has already begun.