The architects have been good about sending photographic updates, and yesterday my inbox was filled with photos like these. Today I saw them and they cheered me more than any Valentine’s Day card ever would. Arches are appearing! There are two arches in the rear terrace of the main house, and facing those will be one more modern arch, in the rear house, framing our pool.
The interior courtyard is the width of the house, and will be framed by original stone walls.
Inside the main house, the original arches will remain. They were cut into the original, thick, stone-filled mamposteria walls, which frame the interior courtyard. The courtyard runs the width of the house and will have a pond on one side and a tree on the other. The media room and kitchen will be flanked by both the terrace and the central courtyard, and we willingly sacrificed some kitchen space in exchange for good air flow.
It’s not one of those wide houses, at least not from the street. The facade is a modest 9-and-a-half meters, but the house fans out to 10 meters wide when you get to the rear terrace. And I’ll take every meter I can get. The rear of the yard will have a separate, modern building where the master suite will go. That’s where the property goes to 12 meters wide, and thank goodness for that. I think this is the only property we saw, when we were shopping, where the land got wider and not narrower as you walked away from the street. The house itself was kind of OK, sort of forgettable, but not wrecked by bad (or any kind of) renovations in the past 60 years. It was the yard out back that really hooked me. The sense of space, and serenity (which we’re temporarily interrupting) was wonderful. The serenity will return when our ponds, and the sound of trickling water, appear.
When I picture myself sitting on my sofa, with a pond on one side and a pool on the other, each providing the gentle white noise of running water, I nearly lose my mind with anticipation.
Most of the fruit trees have not survived our project. I see the workers are trying to rescue a mandarin and sour orange tree, and our prickly pear cactus tree has been trimmed back, but has been spared. We’re told we can make vitamin-packed nopal margaritas with the prickly pears. Or a shrimp-and-nopal salad. We’ll plant the rest, looking for trees that don’t drop lots of fruit, unless they’re fruits that can garnish our margaritas.
Don’t know if lime trees are pro-bird but I would say they are pro drink! go for the bats they are quiet (they won’t wake you at 5am and they do eat tons of bugs which is a good thing!
I have bats in Connecticut and I’m happy to have the for just the reason you mention. I just don’t want to attract every bat in Santa Ana!
As much as bats may give you the creeps, you might want to change your mind. The average bat eats 500 to 1000 bugs an hour! Might come in handy during the rainy season…
As for your arches, love them. And the thought of a pond AND pool makes me a bit envious. My budget leans more toward pond than pool.
Trying to find your post when you included plans for the house. Would be nice to visualize the finished project.
Very excited for you both!
My tags are a mess, but if you click the “architecture” tag, you’ll see all the posts you’re looking for.
http://www.imaginemerida.com/?tag=architecture
I love bats in Connecticut for the reason you mentioned, but for some reason bat guano isn’t a big deal. Their sideways pooping action is hell on our neighbors’ walls.
Thanks for consolidating your posts for me. Hopefully I’ll be closing on my nest in Merida mid-March! I have a photo of a great house I saw COVERED in quano…cant imagine how many and how large the bats that made that mess were!
Wow Lee sounds like your dream is becoming reality. We are currently doing a kitchen renovation and every day when the guys go we marvel on how good the work is and respectful and polite the workers are. The last round of workers were not! We have a lime tree in the back yard that we bought about 4 years ago when we first took posssession of the house we have it in a big pot so we move it around as needed. We have been getting limes for about 3 years they grow fast and there is nothing like getting a lime off your own tree for your drinks. As to birds be careful what you hope for. We have a nice big tree out back and often times we go out there and find bird crap on the chairs
although we do enjoy sitting out in the back mornings and watching the birds in the huge tree next door. Have a great time with your place.
We were thinking of a lime tree, too. Do you know if they attract bats? I guess we’re pro-bird, but anti-bat. Not sure how that works out when we’re selecting trees.
A beautiful beginning to a new life in this heavenly place!!! Will love seeing the progress!!!
I love seeing progress too, even though it’s from my chair in Connecticut. It’s dawning on me that by the time it’s done (October-ish) I’ll be out of vacation time!
It’s going to be beautiful! I can’t wait to see more!
You and me both, sistah!
Ahh, congratulations on your gift of arches for Valentine’s Day, Lee. Know they are golden in your mind.
And perhaps you’ll help me find ways to attract birds to the yard, as well. Thank you for the kind wishes, and the design tip — we’re going to tell the architect to paint them gold!
Oh, how exciting! Love that you have some pictures. We chose our house because of the location and back yard as well – and also have a courtyard. No, I’m not meaning to copy you but think I might steal your fab pond/tree idea (actually I think we already have the tree). Well congratulations on being underway. I can’t wait to follow you down that road!
There’s nothing new under the sun… copy away! I’ve always been fascinated with hidden tropical courtyards, ever since I saw one for the first time in Old San Juan.