Casa de Sierra Nevada, A Belmond Hotel

In 1952 a cluster of colonial houses on Calle Hospicio, in the centre of San Miguel de Allende, opened their doors as Casa de Sierra Nevada. The Mexican highland town was then a quiet place of stone lanes and church bells, newly discovered by a small colony of artists and by American veterans studying painting on the GI Bill.

History

The arrival of those students shaped the town. The Escuela de Bellas Artes, set in a former convent, had opened in 1938; in its halls David Alfaro Siqueiros began a mural he never finished. The Instituto Allende followed in 1951, and its courses in painting, sculpture and Spanish drew a steady flow of foreigners. Casa de Sierra Nevada gave the visitors who came with them a place to stay that matched the houses they admired.

The hotel grew by taking in neighbouring houses, each with its own courtyard. In 2006 it was bought by Orient-Express Hotels, which renamed itself Belmond in 2014, and the house has carried the Belmond name since. The hotel also runs Sazón, a cooking school in a restored house nearby, where classes teach the cooking of central Mexico.

Architecture and design

The buildings are colonial houses of the kind that line the streets of the centre, some of them built in the eighteenth century for the merchant families of the silver era. Thick walls of stone and adobe face the street in ochre and red, and behind them rooms open onto patios planted with bougainvillea and citrus, with fountains and stone arcades. Brick vaulted ceilings, carved wooden doors and tiled floors survive throughout. No two rooms are the same, because no two houses were.

Rooms and suites

Rooms and suites are spread across the houses, many with fireplaces for winter nights and private terraces over the rooftops of the town. The furnishings mix colonial antiques with Mexican crafts: textiles from Oaxaca, painted tiles, hand-blown glass and iron lamps.

Dining

Andanza, the hotel's restaurant, serves Mexican cooking with produce from the farms of the Bajío, in a dining room and on a terrace within the old walls. At Sazón, guests can spend a morning at the market and an afternoon learning moles, salsas and tortillas. The bar is the place for mezcal and tequila from the hotel's list.

Wellness

The spa offers massages and treatments within one of the old houses, and a pool gives the property a place to rest between walks on the steep cobbles.

Weddings and events

San Miguel is one of Mexico's favourite wedding towns, and the hotel's courtyards and terraces suit intimate ceremonies, rehearsal dinners and receptions for small groups. Wedding parties often process through the lanes to the Parroquia or back from it behind mariachis and giant puppets. The scale suits private celebrations rather than large conferences.

Location

The hotel stands in the Zona Centro, a few blocks from the Jardín and the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel, whose pink neo-Gothic façade was added in the 1880s by the local mason Zeferino Gutiérrez. The Bellas Artes and the Instituto Allende are both within reach on foot, as are the market and the shops of Calle Canal. Parque Juárez, the town's shaded park, lies a short walk downhill. Querétaro Intercontinental Airport is about an hour away by car and Del Bajío International at León about an hour and a half. The town sits at around 1,900 metres, with warm days and cool nights for much of the year. As a luxury hotel in San Miguel de Allende, it has the advantage of age: it was here before almost everyone else.