House and Garden Tour in San Miguel de Allende

by Tara Waters Lumpkin

The colonial town of San Miguel de Allende has a large expatriate community and the town is well-known for its many lovely homes and gardens. The Biblioteca Publica (public library) offers bus tours of these homes and gardens every Sunday beginning at the library and ending near the town center, known as el Jardin (the garden). The tour begins at noon and costs US$15 per person, which goes to support schooling and materials for the children in and around San Miguel de Allende. Over three hundred owners participate in the house and garden tours. Generally, two to three houses are shown.

Buy your ticket at the library, pin your name tag on and make sure you don’t lose it, as I did, or you will be turned back from the bus. I found my name tag on the street corner where it had fallen off. Arrive at the library early. there were approximately two hundred people waiting to board the buses when we went on the tour!

The bus initially drove to Atotonilco, a small town outside San Miguel de Allende, where we viewed a magnificent property that was once part of a large hacienda, which is believed to have been connected originally to the beautiful white-domed Santuario (church) across the street. Because it was Sunday, the area in front of the church was filled with cars and with people selling food and other items as well as the usual dog or two lying around.

The oldest part of the hacienda dated back to the 1750s. The outdoor dining room still had the original trough used by cattle in the old days. There was a lovely outdoor pool, a tea house in the corner of the sumptuous gardens, frequented by a friendly cat, and an endless array of exotic bathrooms and bedrooms, as well as a sauna, extensive gourmet kitchen, an additional indoor dining room, and a variety of living areas, all arranged around an extensive patio. The owners, an artist and architect, lost no time in telling us that the house was for sale for around $600,000. I imagine that the house and garden tour is an excellent way for people to show their houses en masse to possible buyers.

The second house was very different from the hacienda. It was a small property in town about six blocks from the Jardin, filled with light from large windows, some of which were two stories high, with narrow outside corridors running up and down several levels to the bedrooms and to a roof terrace. The entry courtyard had plants and an elephant fountain, with an elephant bas relief on the opposite wall. Several head shots of elephants, and in particular of their expressive and soulful eyes, were taped on the wall of an upstairs office. Owned by an artist couple and their daughter, the structure housed a large art collection, including many pieces they made themselves. It also had bordello red sofas in the two story high living room. A colorful snake wound its way along one of the bathroom walls reaching into the shower.

After the tour have an ice cream at the Jardin or a leisurely lunch, as it will be around two pm, time for la comida.