Como se llama tu casa?

Many things are different here in Mexico.  Well, most things. Well….. Everything! One of the different things I love about Mexico is the houses are often affectionately given names by their owners. How this all began I am not certain, but maybe the practice harkens back to colonial times. The grand old haciendas had names, used primarily to distinguish them from one another, similar to the large ranches of Texas which of course have names.  Communities sprung up near the haciendas where the workers and their families lived, the haciendas may have fallen into ruin but many of the small communities around the crumbling haciendas that dot the Yucatan peninsula today still carry the name of the original hacienda. Naming your home is a very charming thing to do and most expats take great care in doing so. There are many names I absolutely love: such as Casa Suenos, Casablanca, Casa Azul, Casa Las Sirenas, Casa de dos Tortugas, Casa Buena Vista.

 Expats often select a name describing a feature of the home, themselves or what they hope their home will be, using Casa Rima our friends from Texas carried over the name of their sailboat. From observation, we have concluded most Yucatecans do not name their homes. As you walk the neighborhoods, you see plaques attached to homes such as La Familia Gomez. Choosing a charming name for a home seems to be a Gringo thing!  After the purchase of our Merida home, we began to muse over what name to choose, we had some good laughs with names such as Casa Cerveza, Casa Iguana and Casa Adie. It brought back memories of naming our children and pets. We pondered and we pondered but nothing was sounding right.

Of course living here in an old colonial home was our dream, of course, our home offers the hope of a simple and secure future. We considered Casa Amarillo, but I did not want to be tied down with a certain color for the facade, what if someday I painted the façade, pink, lime green or turquoise we could find ourselves in a constant state of renaming our house! One day as most things go with us as a joke we decided House in the South, we are south of centro historico, we are from a southern state in the US; we thought it all made perfect sense. The Spanish translation is simple and strong. A beautiful stone plaque engraved “CASA SUR” will soon hang near the front door.

SE VENDE (For Sale)

What do two Americans do when they want to buy a house in Mexico? RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH. When we decided to move to Mexico, we talked of toes in the sand days leisurely sucking down cerveza as palms rustled overhead and  turquoise waves licked the shore, however we were jolted from that daydream by the reality of needing infrastructure!

After we discovered the colonial cities of Yucatan we knew exactly what we wanted. We desired authenticity in the house and the neighborhood. We Googled constantly, searching every available website. We scanned real estate listings.  We read forums and blogs gleaning information from every available source.

You never know what's behind those doors!

I made a research trip to Merida and we included the colonial city of Campeche as well. We even considered a couple of charming properties outside of Merida.

I met with two different realtors and looked at a dozen or so homes. I walked the neighborhoods of the houses we liked at different times of the day. I spoke with an architect about renovations. We have remodeled our last four homes in the states, so I guess we like being under construction. Truth is we like our home to reflect us.

''Original'' house w/ big yard

Upon arriving in Yucatan we took a breather at the beach, and from available real estate websites we began our house hunting. By this time there were only a couple of properties we were interested in, if they did not fit the bill, we would just keep renting.

Really neat Mérida house

On a Sunday morning, we walked the floors of the home we would buy. Some “experts” suggest when you relocate to a foreign country; you should try it on, see how it fits, and rent for a year, which truly is sound advice even though we did not do that. When we left Midland, we both knew we were one hundred percent committed; it truly was Mexico or Bust.  We were standing in the back yard of the house and we decided it just felt like home. We made an offer, the owners accepted and we were on our way to having a home in Mexico.

Tall ceilings

House in Campeche w/ promise