The small lakeside town of Chapala in Jalisco had more buildings designed by notable architects in the first half of the twentieth century than any other location of its size in Mexico, perhaps even in North America.

In 1900, Chapala was little more than an overgrown fishing village with one major hotel and 1753 residents. Fifty years later, its population had tripled and it boasted an extraordinary range of architect-designed buildings—varying from small chalets, fanciful Victorian-style villas and designer mansions to a grand railroad station and modernist vacation homes.

This eclectic mix of fine architecture greatly enhanced Chapala’s visual appeal, creating a legacy which continues to attract visitors today, even though the ‘town’ is now a small city of around 25,000 people.

According to a report in The Mexican Herald in 1898, bricks then cost about US$12 a thousand in Chapala, and a “comfortable cottage of eight or ten rooms, of two stories, built solidly with good foundations” cost less than $8,000. Lakeshore lots which cost only three cents a square meter a few years earlier were now changing hands for ninety cents a square meter, “one of the signs of the modern times in Chapala.”

The leading architects and their works

The earliest chalets at Chapala at the end of the nineteenth century may have been kit homes (perhaps from the U.S.) but, by the dawn of the twentieth century, architect-designed homes and hotels were in vogue. Here are brief descriptions of some of the prominent architects responsible for transforming Chapala.

George Edward King (1852-1912)

The first noteworthy foreign architect in Chapala was English architect George King, who had completed the stately Villa Tlalocan in 1896 for British consul Lionel Carden, before building the iconic Casa Pérez Verdía (commonly called Casa Braniff) in 1904-05 for a prominent Guadalajara lawyer and historian. The lawyer sold it two years later to Alberto Braniff, a wealthy Mexico City businessman, and it remained in the Braniff family until the 1940s. It is now a restaurant.

Prior to arriving in Mexico, King had designed a number of grand buildings in the U.S., including several private residences in Boulder, Colorado; Old Main at Colorado Agricultural college (now Colorado State University) in Fort Collins; the Tabor opera house, post office and hotel, all in Leadville, Colorado; and a number of offices and residences in El Paso, Texas.

In Mexico, King—sometimes with partners—was also responsible for the former customs house (now Museo Histórico)in Ciudad Juárez, and theaters in the cities of Zacatecas, Durango and Chihuahua. He also remodeled the Correo Mayor in Mexico City, as well as the Government Palace and Degollado Theater in Guadalajara. King returned to the U.S. when the Mexican Revolution began.

Charles Grove Johnson (1865–1942)

Charles Johnson, who worked with King on Villa Tlalocan and became a close friend of Lionel Carden, had moved to Mexico in about 1895, and soon found a place in the upper echelons of Mexico City society. He was the architect for a new British Legation building (later consulate) in Mexico City in 1911, and for the Cowdray Sanatorium (now the American-British-Cowdray Hospital), which opened in 1923.

Charles Lincoln Strange (1865?–1908)

Before arriving in Guadalajara, American architect Charles Strange had worked in Los Angeles and designed or co-designed Orange County Courthouse No 1 in Santa Ana, the Hotel Green in Pasadena and the Central Police Station at First and Hill. When his marriage broke down in 1900, Strange moved to Guadalajara, where he designed the Banco de Londres y México (later Cine Lux) and the Hotel San Francis (later Hotel Imperial). Both buildings were demolished when the city reinvented itself in the 1940s and 1950s.

In Chapala, Strange is the likely architect of the lakefront Chalet Paulsen (commonly called Villa Paz, and now a boutique hotel), built for Guadalajara entrepreneur Ernesto Paulsen in the very early years of the twentieth century. Paulsen and Strange were close friends, and worked together in 1904 on a proposed hotel (never built) on Isla de los Alacranes. That same year, Strange drew up plans for a pier and the first Chapala Yacht Club. The wooden pier, completed in 1910, two years after the architect’s death, was accidentally destroyed by fire in 1914.

Guillermo de Alba (1874–1935)

The most noteworthy Mexican architect in Chapala’s early tourist years was Guillermo de Alba. Born in Mexico City, de Alba graduated as an engineer in Guadalajara, before spending some time in Chicago. In the first decades of the twentieth century, de Alba designed and built numerous fine residences and commercial buildings in Guadalajara and Chapala.

His works in Guadalajara included the Hotel Fenix, Casa Abanicos, Villa Guillermina, and the development of Colonia Moderna, a new ‘garden city’ neighborhood.

In Chapala, de Alba’s architectural legacy is unequaled. His first major work was the 60-room Hotel Palmera, completed in 1907, one wing of which later became the Hotel Nido and is now the Palacio Municipal. De Alba also designed his family house Mi Pullman (1908), beautifully restored by Rosalind Chenery; Villa Niza (1919), with its strong geometric design; and—his crowning glory—the elegant Chapala Railroad Station (1920), now the Centro Cultural González Gallo.

Angelo Corsi (1867?- >1936)

In 1899, Italian engineer-architect Angelo Corsi, recently arrived in Guadalajara, was engaged to build a public school in the city. Later commissions in Guadalajara included ostentatious family homes for Aurelio González Hermosillo and Julio Collignon, while in Puerto Vallarta, Corsi designed the ‘Belle Époque’ Teatro Saucedo, completed in 1922, that city’s first theater (and later its first hotel).

In Chapala, Corsi’s major remodeling of the historic Villa Montecarlo, where pioneering foreigner Septimus Crowe once lived, created in 1919 a grand Italianate building, set amidst beautifully landscaped gardens. This property later became a hotel, but the main building was torn down and replaced by an ugly generic modern edifice in the early 1960s.

Corsi also designed and built Villa Macedonia, completed in 1920 a few doors west of Villa Montecarlo. Villa Macedonia was later acquired by Dr. Carlo Sutter, the honorary Swiss consul in Guadalajara, and renamed Villa Lucerna.

Luis Barragan Morfin (1902–1988)

Luis Barragán Morfín, the most influential Mexican architect of the twentieth century, graduated as an engineer from the Escuela Libre de Ingenieros in 1923. After traveling to Europe and North Africa, he returned to Guadalajara in 1926 to begin working alongside his brother Juan José, before establishing his own architectural practice.

Barragán was active in Guadalajara (see this MexConnect article) and Chapala between 1930 and 1936, before moving to Mexico City to build homes and develop the residential area of Jardines del Pedregal. Barragán, the only Mexican ever to have won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize (1980), was also responsible for Jardines del Bosque in Guadalajara, and, with partners, for Torres de Satélite (1957) and the residential areas of Las Arboledas and Lomas Verdes in the state of México.

In Chapala, in the early 1930s, Barragán transformed (with help from Juan Palomar y Arias) the home belonging to his family on Francisco I. Madero, and undertook several commissions, including modifying or remodeling Casa de las Cuentas (the ‘D. H. Lawrence’ house on calle Zaragoza, now Hotel Villa QQ), Villa Adriana, and Villa Robles León (Paseo Ramón Corona #14), where he was helped by Ignacio Díaz Morales.

Ignacio Díaz Morales (1905–1992)

Ignacio Díaz Morales was a fellow graduate of the Escuela Libre de Ingenieros, who, after gaining professional qualifications as an architect, had a distinguished career at the University of Guadalajara’s School of Architecture, where he influenced several later generations of architects. He was commissioned with the controversial but necessary project at the end of the 1940s which destroyed many historic buildings in Guadalajara to create the four central plazas, which form a cross when viewed from the air.

Juan Palomar y Arias (1894–1987)

Palomar y Arias fought all his life to make Guadalajara a better place in which to live, and combined his architecture practice with teaching at all three major Guadalajara universities: the University of Guadalajara, ITESO, and the Autonomous University of Guadalajara.

In Chapala, he helped Barragán transform his family home, and, on the hillside overlooking Villa Montecarlo, designed the Lourdes Chapel, built with the assistance of engineer Luis Ugarte. After years of benign neglect, this significant historical and cultural landmark, first consecrated in August 1941, was reopened for services in 2022, following extensive renovations spearheaded by Ing. Jorge Varela Martínez Negrete.

Pedro Castellanos Lambley (1902–1961)

Another graduate from the Escuela Libre de Ingenieros, and member of the ‘Tapatío school of architecture’ which had such a profound influence on architecture in Guadalajara and Chapala, was Pedro Castellanos Lambley. Raised in an exceptionally well-connected family, Castellanos designed or co-designed several stately family homes in Guadalajara, as well as the city’s San Juan de Dios market, a structure since replaced.

In Chapala, Castellanos designed two properties on Avenida Hidalgo: the magnificent Villa Ferrara (still intact) and Villa Adriana (later modified by Luis Barragán), and he also did extensive work on two buildings on Paseo Ramón Corona.

Ambrosio Ulloa González (1859-1933)

Educator and journalist Ambrosio Ulloa qualified simultaneously in 1880 as an engineer and a lawyer. He then taught at the Jalisco School of Engineers from 1893 to 1894 before founding the Escuela Libre de Ingenieros, inaugurated in 1902. In addition to various architectural projects in Guadalajara, Ulloa and his wife bought and remodeled a small 1906 building in Chapala into Casa Verde. Unfortunately, following some structural damage, the building, located immediately behind the present-day market, was torn down in 2006 by city authorities, despite protests at the unnecessary and avoidable loss of a significant element of Chapala’s urban heritage.

Aurelio Aceves Peña (1887-1946)

The building at Paseo Ramón Corona #9 is thought to be the work of engineer Aurelio Aceves Peña. Aceves Peña graduated from the Escuela Libre de Ingenieros in 1913 and was hugely influential in the development of architecture as a career. He taught numerous architects, including Ignacio Díaz Morales, Luis Barragán, Pedro Castellanos and Rafael Urzúa, and was Director of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Guadalajara for decades. His massive library of works related to engineering and architecture was unsurpassed. His architectural projects in Guadalajara included the dome of the university building, and the arches of Vallarta Avenue (1942).

Carlos Ochoa Arroniz (1847–1943)

Also on Paseo Ramón Corona, at #6, is Villa Ochoa, built by Carlos Ochoa Arroniz. Somewhat astonishingly, and unlike almost all the other old villas in Chapala, Villa Ochoa is still owned by direct descendants of its original owner. Ochoa Arroniz was a civil engineer; after studying at the College of Mining in Mexico City, he worked on plans to improve the navigability of the River Santiago, and on several railroads in western Mexico. His great-grandson, architect Jaime Troop Ochoa, aims to restore this epoch-defining building with its collection of period furnishings to something like its former grandeur.

As respected Guadalajara architect-journalist Juan Palomar Verea and others have repeatedly pointed out in print, Chapala has shown scant regard in the past fifty years for its rich architectural heritage. The prime examples of its failure to value its past have been the demolition of Corsi’s Villa Montecarlo in the early 1960s, of Ulloa’s Casa Verde more recently, and its tacit acceptance of a massive downtown remodeling in the 1950s, which created multi-lane main avenues at the expense of several historical buildings and dramatic and irreversible changes to Chapala’s long established street plan and its former beach and lakefront.

Acknowledgment

My thanks to Arq. Antonio Aceves of ITESO, Guadalajara for reading an early draft of this article, and for his valuable comments and suggestions.

Want to read more?

Additional details about these architects and their projects can be found in the author’s book If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s Historic Buildings and Their Former Occupants, translated into Spanish as Si las paredes hablaran: Edificios históricos de Chapala y sus antiguos ocupantes. The author’s 2022 book Lake Chapala: A Postcard History uses reproductions of more than 150 vintage postcards to tell the incredible story of how the small village of Chapala morphed into an international tourist and retirement center.

The post Chapala’s rich architectural heritage: here today, gone tomorrow? appeared first on MexConnect.

G. M. Bashford’s Tourist Guide to Mexico was first published exactly seventy years ago in 1954. It was one of a spate of motoring book guides written after World War II as Americans began to hit the open road and drive south in search of sunshine and adventure.

How much has Mexico really changed in the past seventy years? The answer is: in some ways lots, and in other ways almost not at all.

The following extracts from Bashford’s book give the flavor of his anecdotal writing style, and of the subjects which occupied his attention.

Monterrey

“The trademark of the city is the 5,700-foot-high Cerro de la Silla (Saddle Mountain), which rises above the city and is seen from every direction. The thrifty Regiomontanos, as the people of Monterrey are called, tell a story about how the saddle in the mountain was formed. According to the legend, an ambitious mountain climber took an early morning stroll to the summit of what was then a cone-shaped mountain, to watch the sunrise. As he was about to return, a centavo piece fell from his pocket, and before he had finished digging for it, there were two peaks instead of one.”

Mazatlán

After naming five hotels (Belmar, Freeman, Central, Imperial and Morales), Bashford warns that:

“Existing hotels in Mazatlán are hopelessly inadequate. Check on arrival to see if new hotels have been completed.”

For local sightseeing, he explains that:

“Araña, calèches, surries or buggies, as you choose to call them, are for rent with driver at the Hotel Belmar and various other points in the city.”

And, if you think highway 15 is bad today, you should have driven it fifty years ago!

“The road south from Mazatlán is good, except for a few missing bridges. Motorists should be careful not to travel too fast, as some of these detours are unmarked, and may be come upon suddenly.

“About an hour out of Mazatlán the highway enters the state of Nayarit, and shortly afterwards the Acaponeta River is crossed – on a ferry. In case the ferry is not working, there is a ford about a mile upstream which can be crossed in dry weather. Two more rivers, the San Pedro and Santiago, remain to be crossed, both by ferry pending completion of the bridges. If the traffic is heavy, considerable time may be lost at the ferry crossings. At some of the ferries, passenger cars take precedence over trucks, which fact is stated on signs.”

Tequila and Beautiful Women

Bashford seems unsure of the true quality of tequila…

“When thoroughly fermented, it is consumed either straight, or with lemon and salt, taken alternately. A more agreeable possibility (not to be broached in the presence of the local folk) is to combine it with sugar, lemon, etc., in a tequila sour, and drink it as a cocktail. The consensus among all but the most rugged foreigners is that taken straight, as in Jalisco, it leaves much to be desired as a refreshment. If, however, it must be taken straight, the tipo almendrado (with almonds) is best.”

… but very sure about the most beautiful women in Mexico:

“Within Mexico, Guadalajara is famed as the land of the legendary wine, women and song, except that here they are called tequila, Tapatías, and mariachis. The Tapatías, who are always given preference even over the wine and song, are by reputation the most beautiful women of Mexico.”

Lake Chapala

After listing six hotels for Guadalajara – Morales (Calle Corona), Del Parque (Vallarta), Guadalajara (Colón), Fenix (López Cotilla; 25 pesos for a double), Roma (Juárez) and Clemen Courts on the Mexico City highway – Bashford sets off for Chapala.

“Chapala, a quaint town of 5,000 inhabitants located on the north shore of the largest lake in Mexico, is 30 miles south of Guadalajara on a high-speed highway.

“Due to the increasing demands for water on the Lerma River, and the shortage of rainfall in recent years, the level of Lake Chapala has decreased steadily for the past several years. In 1952 it was practically impossible to go boating or swimming on the lake.

“However Chapala is still a charming pueblo, and a better place for rest would be hard to find. There are two good hotels. Villa Monte Carlo is a first-class hotel a mile from town, well managed by Señora Martha Viteri de Morales. Rates are 15 to 45 pesos single, and 40 to 60 pesos double; meals are 20 pesos per person per day. There are four deluxe bungalows. The Hotel Nido, in town, is another good hotel, with rates 15 to 25 pesos single, and 25 to 50 pesos double; meals are 20 pesos per person per day.”

Ajijic just qualifies for a single paragraph.

“Ajijic is a picturesque pueblo a few miles west of Chapala on the lake, not quite so interesting as some stories would have you believe. It recently has become an artists’ colony. Some hand-painted and hand-loomed fabrics are made here by enterprising Americans. Inquire for locations at Posada Ajijic.”

Single paragraphs are also sufficient for Ocotlán and Jocotepec.

“Ocotlán, on the northeast corner of Lake Chapala, is another picturesque pueblo, as yet “undiscovered.” Every day goods are brought in canoes from other pueblos on the lake to trade in the market.”

“Jocotepec is at the western end of Lake Chapala, 40 miles from Guadalajara via the Mexico City Highway. Also may be reached by gravel road from Chapala.”

Puerto Vallarta

Bashford shows considerably more enthusiasm for various side-trips from Guadalajara and Chapala, including Puerto Vallarta,

“the most charming and least-known pueblo in Mexico. It is a fishing village of 4.800 people located on the Pacific Coast due west of Guadalajara. Its charm lies in the fact that until a few years ago it could be reached only be sea. Thus the people have not yet come to regard tourists as a necessary evil, as in some of the more frequented resorts. Here is found complete democracy: even the mayor can be seen sweeping the street in front of his house every morning!

“Although there are no architectural masterpieces in the town, some of the old buildings provide excellent material for good camera shots… There are no shops catering to tourists….”

San Miguel de Allende and Morelia

Elsewhere, Bashford mentions only three hotels in San Miguel de Allende:

“the Posada San Francisco on the zócalo (double 75 to 95 pesos American plan), the Colonial, one block to the west (30 pesos) and the Arias 4 blocks away on Mesones near the market (20 – 30 pesos; main attraction ping-pong).”

Morelia does not do much better. Four hotels are mentioned: “Virrey de Mendoza (Portal Matamoros 16 on the zócalo; 24-44 pesos a double), Valladolid (Portal Hidalgo 241 on the zócalo), Casino (Portal Hidalgo 229 on the zócalo) and Oseguera (Avenida Madero Oriente 24, a block from the zócalo).”

These hotels were far surpassed in Bashford’s estimation by the finest hotel in this region, the Balneario de San José Purúa (which sadly has long been closed). A road branches off highway 15 and leads to:

“San José Purúa, and one of the most spectacular views in Mexico. The pueblo is noted for its radioactive waters, and its fame has spread widely – cars from seven different countries have been seen in town at the same time. (Single 70 pesos, double 110 pesos, American plan).”

Road Conditions

When Bashford’s book was published, the Pan-American highway had still not been completed.

“The Tehuantepec-Tuxtla highway (immigration inspection at Juchitan) is nearly straight, and good time can be made. Two hours’ drive from Tehuantepec is Las Cruces, where a road turns right to Arriaga. This pueblo, on the railroad to Tapachula (Guatemalan point of entry), is the logical point of shipment for motorists who wish to send their cars to that country. It is still impossible to drive all the way, there being no highway connection between Ciudad Cuauhtemoc and the Guatemalan capital. Rail freight is about 300 pesos per car. The trip is scheduled to be made in 10 hours, but often takes as long as 20. There are no Pullman accommodations, and the trip is recommended only to the hardiest of travelers.”

The author frequently found roads that were less than perfect:

“The drive from Mexico City to Acapulco includes the best and the worst roads in Mexico. Two stretches of the new freeway are now open, but beyond Iguala (the southern half of the trip) the road is in a sorry state. Although Acapulco can be reached from Iguala in from 4 to 5 hours, the trip itself is unrewarding.

“Pending completion of the new highway beyond Iguala, 5 hours or more are necessary for the 160-mile trip to Acapulco, depending on the extent of the rains and the ambition of the maintenance crew assigned to the area.”

Acapulco

The resort of Acapulco was thriving:

“The original atmosphere of the old port exists no more. There are now broad paved streets, modern stores, and dozens of hotels, several of them large luxury establishments. The beaches are crowded with people, and it is necessary to look far for the proverbial native sleeping in his hammock beneath his sombrero or lazily drinking coconut milk. There are, of course, compensations for the lost atmosphere: comfortable hotels, lively night clubs, a country club and facilities for all known water sports. And the natural beauty of the place is such that no amount of modern construction could change it.”

San Cristobal de Las Casas

The city of San Cristobal de Las Casas fascinated the author:

“The social organization of the city is the most interesting in Mexico, each trade monopolizing a different section of the city, which has its own name, patron saint, and holidays. The distinct neighborhoods also usually represent a different tribe. For example, the Aztecs who came with Mazariego stayed to found the Barrio (district) Mexicano, and today are dedicated to weaving and dyeing. In the Barrio Cerrillo dwell the blacksmiths, in Barrio Guadalupe the toymakers, in San Ramon the potters, and in Santa Lucia the makers of fireworks! Around the first part of the seventeenth century a group of malcontents from Guatemala came to town and formed their own barrio: Cuxtitali.

“The greatest interest, however, is the market where can be seen Indians from a dozen distinct tribes, each with its own type of dress.”

Curious Attractions and Indian Distances

Tell it like it is! Bashford found an unexpected attraction at the Villa Granados hotel in Tehuacan, Puebla:

“Excellent cuisine. Attentive service by Señorita Amelia. Friendly atmosphere. The antics of Genaro, the gardener, are alone worth the price of the hotel. When he is not aware of an audience, he goes about his chores singing an unending repertoire of canciones rancheros, occasionally dancing with the hose, broom, or dog.”

But don’t ask how far it is…

“To the Mexican Indian, distance is directly related to time, and therefore of no importance. When enquiring distances in the country, be prepared to accept the answer in leagues (leguas). For the uninitiated, a legua is equal to two whoops and a holler, or not quite so far as up yonder.”

Veracruz

Bashford appears to have enjoyed Veracruz, which even then had a population of over 100,000, and tells a charming tale of social one-upmanship:

“In spite of the vicissitudes of the climate, the Veracruzanos are a merry people. Immigration from all over the world has left its mark on the city, and many of the inhabitants are darker or lighter than Mexicans elsewhere, depending on the origin of their forebears. Apart from music, the only fetish of the people is gold teeth. Every small boy dreams of the day when he will be rich enough to have his teeth capped with gold. And, if he is very successful, he will someday be rich enough to have a tooth pulled and a removable replacement made. Then he will stand in the plaza in the evening, listen to other marimbas and, as the fair maidens pass, remove his tooth, polish it, and ceremoniously replace it.”

Oaxaca

One of the most extravagant tales in Bashford tells how one particular cathedral bell in Oaxaca had to be tried for heresy:

“The Holy Office held proper and exhaustive hearings, and having found the bell guilty, condemned it to be struck throughout eternity. Charles V of Spain, in hearty approval of the sentence, hastened to make a gift to Oaxaca of a clock, complete with striking mechanism. Even today the clock may be seen on the cathedral tower, periodically chastising the guilty bell.”

The Yucatan

The Yucatán Peninsula (Cancún) was still undiscovered:

“One of the most fascinating and least visited of the Mexican archeological areas is the Yucatán Peninsula, located two and a half air hours south of New Orleans, and the same distance east of Mexico City. Before the advent of the airways the peninsula was isolated to all but ocean travelers or an occasional unfortunate who fell prey to the passenger agent of the wood-burning train that from time to time made its way there. Because of its geographic isolation from the rest of Mexico, Yucatán has grown up almost independently: historically, economically, and socially it is a nation apart.”

Reference:

• Bashford, G.M. (1954) Tourist Guide to Mexico. McGraw-Hill.

Did You Know Index
Quotations © Copyright 1954 by William L. Bashford, Jr.
Commentary © Copyright 2004 by Tony Burton. All rights reserved.

The post What was Mexico like 70 years ago? appeared first on MexConnect.

Lake Chapala: A Postcard History

Tony Burton. Sombrero Books, 2022.

Available from Amazon Books: Paperback / Kindle

Tony Burton’s most recent book, Lake Chapala: a postcard history, is an interesting pictorial romp through the Lake Chapala area from just before the twentieth century to about 1960. Over 150 postcards mostly taken from Burton’s private collection give a broad overview of what life was like around the lake from the time when the stagecoach and river boat were the only way to reach the area to when the railroad and the first paved roads opened the region to the world.

These postcards are a collector’s treasure and valuable keepsake, their function since replaced by the digital camera and cell phone. As I looked at each of the postcards, I could feel myself being carried back as though in a time machine. There is something magical in looking at old postcards. Age gives them the same patina one feels looking at old photographs. Back then it was mostly friends and family sending home postcards that exposed us to the wonders of parts of the world we didn’t know. Photographs were more expensive, had to be sent to a lab to be processed, and often only took in the traveler but not the ambiance.

Postcards were an inexpensive way to be exposed to the landscape and daily life of another culture without the sender being center stage. At the same time, they kept us in touch with friends and family without having to say too much, giving us more time for exploration and amusement. For those of us growing up in the time of postcards, there’s a nostalgia that comes with viewing them in Burton’s book.

The book is divided into eleven chapters, each dealing with a different period of the history and taking us over a wide area around the lake. Fortunately, two maps have been included so that I could situate each of the villages in the postcards since I hadn’t traveled to all of them during my stay in Ajijic. Another plus with having a map is that when I return to Ajijic, I am now motivated to visit villages I hadn’t been to before. Also, knowing some of the history of a place before traveling there is a bit like visiting an old friend one hasn’t seen in years. The familiarity lends itself to a comfort level that increases the pleasure.

The first postcard in the book is from a photograph that dates the image between 1896 or 1897, though it was published in 1901. It’s the waterfront in Chapala that is almost bare of buildings except for the Hotel Arzapalo, Casa Capetillo, Villa Tlalocan and the Villa Josefina. The mountain is prominent in the background as are the fishermen along the shore. The change along that waterfront today is striking. Many of the postcards show that evolution from small fishing villages to sophisticated and architecturally elegant buildings—mostly in Chapala due to the influx of high society vacationers from Mexico City and wealthy foreign residents who came and then stayed, enthralled by the lakeside’s quality of light, weather and vegetation.

One of the more engaging features of the book is the historical stories told along with the postcards—many of which I hadn’t known before. Hotel La Quinta in Jocotepec is one example. It opened its doors to visitors in 1824 and by 1970 was billed as “the oldest public hostelry in continuous operation in Western Mexico.” The hotel was s typical adobe building with a tile roof, shuttered windows and wrought-iron work. It was built one room deep around three patios. You entered through a tropical garden filled with banana and orange trees. Bougainvillea and geraniums filled the patio. Famous international writers and artists stayed there as well as many dignitaries. The magic of Burton’s description makes me wish I had been there before the building fell into disrepair to be remodeled into a discotheque in the mid-1980s. In the 1990s the building was demolished. I wish I had been there when it reflected so much of the beautiful craftsmanship and flowering gardens that makes living in Mexico so splendid. It’s now just a memory of a time that is frozen inside a few surviving postcards.

Another story that caught my interest was that of Neill James. Though I already knew the story of Ms James, the postcards reflecting scenes from her life brought the reality of her contributions to Ajijic closer in awareness. There’s a postcard of Ms James in her hammock, another of her beekeeping enterprise, and another of a local woman spinning strands of yarn for one of her looms. A postcard of Ms James entertaining guests at her home was particularly evocative. That she left this property to the Lake Chapala Society was a gift to the community that keeps on giving.

A visual delight in this book is to peruse the many types of boats that at one time were the only transportation in and out of the area. The lake had been a vital link connecting central Mexico to Guadalajara. “Local-craft criss-crossed the lake every day ferrying all manner of goods and provisions from one small port to the next.” There were fishing skiffs, flat-bottomed launches, row boats, sail canoes, and eventually paddlesteamers. The lake canoes with their huge sails were quite elegant, as noted in one of the photographs, and must have been a beautiful vision skimming the lake on a breezy day. Along the beaches firewood was stockpiled to supply the large paddlesteamers.

I learned that the first steamship was commissioned in 1866. It was built in San Francisco, disassembled, brought to San Blas, and then carried over the mountains on donkeys to Chapala for reassembly. It was the first iron steamship ever built in California, and was seventy-five feet long. It offered regular sailing from Chapala to La Barca, Ocotlán and Jamay every Saturday, returning the following Monday, and was called the Libertad. It capsized in 1889 while approaching Ocotlán taking the lives of 28 passengers. The story is that the people aboard were having too good of a time and moved to one side of the boat unbalancing it, causing the accident.

Although I arrived too late in its history to see the lake dotted with all manner of vessels, the postcards bring me back to the time, and I can imagine what it must have been like. It’s no wonder so many were attracted to this area long before I discovered it.

One of the things that surprised me when I first arrived in the lake country was the stately and architecturally sophisticated homes along the Chapala waterfront. It’s not common to see buildings of that caliber in a small fishing village. Burton’s postcards show an array of these houses as they came to be built. Each house has a story, and the stories bring the houses alive. That includes the histories of the hotels that sprang up in the town. Once you read about the background of these places, your appreciation of them is enhanced. I look forward to my return to Chapala with this more enlightened appreciation. It does make a difference to have some knowledge of what one is looking at whether it’s a painted postcard or photograph of a place. Each anecdote that accompanies a card beckons me to return.

Lake Chapala: a postcard history is well-researched and enlightening. It brings alive for us a greater appreciation of the small towns along the banks of Lake Chapala, and should be on the book shelf of everyone who lives in the area. The book is 139 pages and beautifully designed with photographs of the postcards on every page—sometimes two on a page. Each postcard comes with a story. Pictures ground the imagination and at the same time expand it. Burton’s book makes me nostalgic to return to the lakeside, but with a greater appreciation of its offerings than when I lived there before.

Tony Burton’s Lake Chapala: a postcard history is a gem of a book and a gift to anyone living in proximity to the lake.

***

Lake Chapala; A Postcard History is available at Diane Pearl’s in Riberas; Hotel Villa QQ in Chapala; at La Nueva Posada, Mi México and Ajijic Museo de Arte (all in Ajijic); and via Amazon (both print and Kindle editions).

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Foreign Footprints in Ajijic: Decades of Change in a Mexican Village

Tony Burton. Sombrero Books, 2022.

Available from Amazon Books: Paperback / Kindle

Tony Burton’s most recent book, Foreign Footprints in Ajijic, captures a period of time in Ajijic’s history from the 1940s to the 1980s that is both intriguing and eye-opening. It is hard to imagine the comings and goings that took place in this seemingly quiet fishing village nestled beside Lake Chapala, a stone’s throw from the bigger and more accessible village of Chapala.

But hidden inside this gentle, easygoing community are tales of crime, passion, greed, generosity and flowering creativity. Each of these stories left a mark on the evolution of the village. The book is a portrait of a fascinating foreign community that lived full and intense lives against the background of its laid-back host.

Foreigners came to the lake area for many reasons—some seeking adventure, others as guests of friends, and still others to seek their fortune. And, though it may have been a temporary venture, many stayed on or returned for the same reasons that drew me to this jewel of a village—the special light that makes the flowers scintillate and changes the color of the mountain from a subtle palette of mauve to deep purple, depending on the time of day. Added to its visual beauty was the agreeable climate due to its sizeable lake, once the heart around which the village thrived.

Ajijic for most of its existence was a small village of fishermen and farmers that sustained itself through a strong sense of community and family. It was too remote and inaccessible for the general Mexican population to give it much thought as a holiday escape. Most goods were delivered by boat, as a road came very late to the area and there were no comfortable inns or hotels to lure outsiders. Those who came from abroad and stayed were rugged individualists and adventurers or people redefining themselves with newly minted pasts of dubious truth.

Some seeds of change were planted in the twenties when screenwriter Charles Kaufman lived in Ajijic for a few months. How he discovered this remote village is hard to say. But he passed his enthusiasm on to a friend, Louis Stephens, who acquired property in Ajijic and offered its use to Helen Kirtland, a new arrival to the village who developed a weaving industry that was instrumental in creating a new destiny for the community.

Russian dancers and Paramahansa Yogananda

I was amazed to read that the guru Paramahansa Yogananda passed through in 1929 to visit the Russian dancer Zara (La Rusa) and her partner Holger, whose lives in Ajijic were so infamous that even I knew their story though I came much later to Ajijic. The arrival of Yogananda cleared up a mystery for me.

I lived in Mexico City during the sixties and taught at a girls’ bilingual high school. I was asked if I would be their gym teacher, a program of movement they were to do several times a week. And, to my surprise, I was asked to give them a yoga class in the style of Yogananda, a method I had to learn very quickly, or I should say, I learned along with my students. The surprising thing was that I had never heard of yoga being taught in an American high school. And I wondered where the head of the school got the idea. I had barely heard of yoga being taught at all back then.

From Burton’s book, I now understand that this influential man had passed through Mexico, and astonishingly, through the tiny village of Ajijic. The threads of connection in our lives are like a giant spider web with odd threads that connect our lives to others in unexpected ways. To this day, over fifty years later, I still do his method of yoga though it’s unlikely my body will be unnaturally preserved after my death as it is said his was.

Burton’s book delves into a bit of earlier history, mostly to set the groundwork for what’s to come in the forties. A surprise for me when reading of this pre-growth period was how many German and British nationals with a small scattering of other Europeans had arrived and ventured into business in Ajijic before it was actually discovered by adventurers from the North American continent. It’s a wonder how they knew of this tiny enclave from so far away, and why they felt a need to develop or exploit or be a part of it before the United States or Canada ever discovered its potential.

Once we get into the forties, more creative types start to settle in the area. One of the first was La Rusa, whom I mentioned earlier, an eccentric ballet dancer who reinvented herself many times over, and lived an audacious and extravagant life that was never questioned nor maligned by the local people. She and her Danish partner settled in Ajijic for life and devoted much of their time to the gold mines they had laid claim to. I hadn’t realized before reading Burton’s book, though I lived seven years in Ajijic, that Rancho del Oro’s name was due to a literal truth. At one time Ajijic was rich in gold and silver, and many foreigners came to try their hand at staking a claim.

The Posada Ajijic and Neill James

Aside from giving the history of how Rancho del Oro came to be established, Burton tells how many other areas came to be named and developed. For anyone living in one of these places, it would be an especially interesting read. This is also true of how the waterfront came to be developed as well as how other parts of the area. For instance, the old Posada Inn has a long and fascinating history. In reading about it, I wondered why I hadn’t been curious about it before. When I revisit Ajijic, as I will soon, I will have a completely new perspective of this old inn full of so much fascinating history.

Another place I hadn’t given much thought to when I lived there was the Neill James’ house where so much of the ex-pat life takes place. Yet, here again is a fascinating story of a remarkable woman. Neill James was a woman of extraordinary independence and courage as were so many women who settled and contributed to the area. Each one is worthy of a book.

But I will focus on Neill James as her mark is everywhere in the identity of what Ajijic is today. Neill James was a writer, an entrepreneur, and a property developer with a deep commitment to the Mexican community. She was a visionary who did a lot to mold what is the best of the ex-pat community. And the bequeathing of her property to the community after her death has done a lot to bring in people and anchor foreign residents to the village. Many have followed her example of giving back to the people who have welcomed them onto their land.

Ajijic for artists and authors

One of the things that intrigued me when I moved to Ajijic was the proliferation of artists in what was then a relatively small and remote village. Galleries flourished and the art scene was vibrant.

In reading Burton’s book, I learned how integrated the arts were, even far back into its past. Many artists came and left but used Ajijic as inspiration for some of their work. I found it hard to leave the village without bringing back some of the more recent art work being done, and have a huge linocut by Pat Apt and a small painting by Juan Navarro, both artists mentioned in Burton’s book. I also have a wonderful poster by photographer Xill Fessenden. So though I’ve left, I’ve taken some of the energy of the area with me.

Though I focus on the physical art scene, all the arts found a home in Ajijic. I hadn’t realized how many writers, cinematographers, dancers and musicians passed through—each with an interesting story and background. And though I wondered how the Little Theatre found its way into this community, I had no way of satisfying my curiosity. Thanks to Burton’s research, I no longer find its existence in this small Mexican village an anomaly.

Foreign Footprints in Ajijic is packed with information, and yet it’s an incredibly easy read. The book is thoughtfully organized into five sections: Pre-1940: Adventurers, 1940s Trailblazers, 1950s Trendsetters, 1960s Free Spirits, and 1970s Modernizers. Each fascinating chapter is no more than seven or eight pages with some chapters even shorter. One can pick it up and browse anywhere for an immediate answer related to one’s particular interest. I think of it as a Wikipedia for anyone interested in the area. The research done on the book is extensive—over thirty pages of notes at the back of the book and four pages of bibliography. For the readers’ convenience, there’s a chronology of key dates.

Although I read Foreign Footprints in Ajijic from cover to cover, there’s so much there that I’ll be targeting particular interests of mine when I bring the book with me on my next visit to Ajijic.

For anyone living or visiting the area, to read Burton’s book can only enrich the experience.

***

Foreign Footprints in Ajijic: Decades of Change in a Mexican Village is available at Diane Pearl’s in Riberas; Hotel Villa QQ in Chapala; at La Nueva Posada and Mi México in Ajijic; and via Amazon (both print and Kindle editions).

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New Worlds for the Deaf: the story of the pioneering Lakeside School for the Deaf in rural Mexico by Gwen Chan Burton (Sombrero Books, 2020)

In 1982, Gwen Chan Burton, who had previously taught in government secondary schools in Australia and Canada for 12 years, was faced with a big career decision.

Burton (whose name at the time was still Chan but that would become part of her adventure as well) had recently been certified as a teacher for the deaf and hard of hearing. She could either continue to teach in Canada, albeit in her new specialty, or move to Jocotepec, a small village in the Mexican state of Jalisco where several years earlier two retired Canadian women— Jackie Hartley and Roma Jones—had started a small school for children who couldn’t hear. The impetus for the school came about after meeting a young deaf boy in the plaza of the town where they were living.

It was quite an undertaking, particularly considering that Hartley and Jones had never taught deaf students and spoke little Spanish. Add to that, they had no building to house their school nor did they have the money to fund it.

For Hartley and Jones these were just mere details and within 15 years their Lakeside School for the Deaf, which started off with classes in an upgraded chicken coop, would become an internationally acclaimed success. The term Lakeside is the term used by local English-speaking expats and tourists to refer to the general area along the north shore of Lake Chapala where thousands of expats live; Lakeside stretches from the city of Chapala, through Ajijic to Jocotepec at the western end of the lake.

But when Hartley and Jones recruited Burton and another Canadian teacher of the deaf named Susan van Gurp, it was still very early days indeed: a project that promised hard work in an unknown environment for barely subsistence pay.

“As a student at Melbourne University in the late 1960s, I had dreamed of volunteering as an English teacher in the wilds of Papua New Guinea, then administered by Australia,” says Burton.  “However, after I learned that the government required three years teaching experience before applying–I ended up in Toronto instead of PNG. I guess Jackie Hartley’s offer re-awoke my dream of volunteer teaching and since I was single and debt free, my main concern was how to learn basic Spanish in the three months before we flew south.”

Within a few years, Burton would become the school’s director, a position she held from 1985-1994. The school’s enrollment grew as did the number of teachers, resulting in scores of disadvantaged deaf children and youths finding life-changing communication, free education and friendship at the Lakeside School.

Burton, who now lives on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, recounts the story of what is now The School for Special Children (CAM Gallaudet, Special Education Centre) in her awe-inspiring book, New Worlds for the Deaf – The story of the pioneering Lakeside School for the Deaf in rural Mexico (Sombrero Books 2019).

“The book describes the school’s much loved teachers, first Canadian then Mexican, who opened new worlds for those atypical students, with specialized teaching methods and amazing special events,” says Burton. “Also described is the school’s unique home-based boarding program that allowed many children from distant villages to attend classes.”

In between all her work, Burton met geographer Tony Burton at an Octoberfest celebration in Guadalajara. After the couple married and had children, life became even more hectic especially when Tony was away leading field studies courses and eco-tours around the country.

“Thankfully a wonderful Mexican grandmother was willing to care for our children whenever needed and from her they learned the local customs, the Spanish language and a love of Mexican food,” says Burton. “She was also a generous boarding mother for two adolescent deaf brothers from a distant rancho for several years.”

One of the main challenges faced by Burton was juggling her time: the time needed to make new ear molds for students using the classroom FM amplification systems, the time needed to attend a morning meeting of the school board 20 kilometers away, or the time needed to show English-speaking visitors and former teachers around the classrooms and answer all their questions. Many challenges were unexpected; these included the sudden unannounced arrival of new students, sometimes impoverished and in clear need of immediate care and accommodation.

But the rewards were many, such as seeing the positive changes in new students as they learned to communicate using Mexican sign language and were able to ask questions and understand the answers for the first time in their lives; then seeing their enthusiasm and their parents’ pride as they learned to write their own name, and later began to read.

Asked to share a story from the book about one of the school’s students, Burton takes time to think—there were so many—before deciding to talk about Juan Luis who, after being abandoned by his mother, was sent out to beg in Guadalajara by his next caregiver.

“He was rescued by an aunt who sent him with a truck driver to the home of Rita, one of our staff,” recalls Burton. “The young boy, profoundly deaf, was called Carlos by the truck driver and spent his first week at school as Carlos. When his aunt visited Rita the next weekend we found out his real name, and the following Monday at school we needed to erase Carlos from his workbooks, and create a different sign name, because he was actually Juan Luis, nearly nine years old, bright and personable but unschooled and unable to recognize or express his own name… or count to nine.”

For those deciding on such an adventure, Burton offers the follow advice:

“Go, with an open mind and positive attitude about the people and customs you will encounter,” she says. “Preferably have a good friend with you at least for a long settling-in period, unless you are joining a well-established group of like-minded people. Be able to carry on a basic conversation in the local language and learn whatever you can about your host nation before you arrive. But definitely go if you feel you have skills, knowledge or a harmonizing philosophy to contribute, and accept that it will undoubtedly be a pivotal experience in your life.”

Editor’s note: In the 1980s, The Lakeside School was the only school for the deaf located outside Mexico’s largest cities with a unique home-based boarding program for rural students. A talented Mexican staff taught using sign language, amplified speech and out-of-class learning experiences. The school was in the vanguard of education for the deaf in Mexico.

The book celebrates how the local expatriate and Mexican communities helped fund the school, and how international support enabled the school to grow and flourish. It also includes anecdotes about the traditions and culture of rural Mexico that remain true today, and the engaging, sometimes unbelievable, background stories of individual students, and how the school opened their eyes to new worlds.

New Worlds for the Deaf: the story of the pioneering Lakeside School for the Deaf in rural Mexico by Gwen Chan Burton (Sombrero Books, 2020) is available at select stores in Ajijic and via Amazon.

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If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants

Tony Burton. Sombrero Books, 2020.

Available from Amazon Books: Paperback

Tony Burton’s thoroughly researched and utterly fascinating book If Walls Could Talk, published by Sombrero Books, takes us through the surprising and richly textured history of Chapala’s past from the mid-eighteen hundreds onwards. I had no idea that this laid back, seemingly staid resort town on the shores of Jalisco’s Lake Chapala could have had such an illustrious past. Had the book been published in 1995, when I first passed through Chapala, I would have lingered longer to fully appreciate its multicultural past. Should, as I hope, I return one day, If Walls Could Talk would be a treasured possession to have on me. How much richer my time spent there would be the next time around.

Twenty-five years ago, in the middle of a Quebec winter with snow heaped to our knees, a friend and I were in Guadalajara, a little over an hour by bus from the lake country. I’d vaguely heard about Ajijic, and suggested we visit. The bus stopped in Chapala, but we didn’t get off. (Had I known then what I know now, I’d have made a different decision.) We continued on the short distance to Ajijic. The ride between villages took us on a narrow tarmac road bordered by jacaranda trees, their branches forming a canopy above our heads.

“I’m going to live here,” I told my traveling companion. She scoffed at my intent. A few blocks from our bus stop was an open field surrounded by a wall where several houses were being built. While we were talking to a workman about the price of the houses, the architect Luz María Briseño approached me. “I own one of the plots here,” she said. “I’ll build you a house for a better price.” I made out a check, and told her I’d be back during my spring break to see the progress. It was New Year’s Eve. I had a week’s vacation remaining. My companion and I left the next day to continue our journey. What moved me to make such an impulsive move? The way light shimmered through the petals of flowers, the shifting color on the surrounding mountains, and a lake that appeared the size of an ocean nestled high in the Sierra Madres. When I later returned, the color of the jacaranda blossoms with the light passing through mesmerized me.

When I read in Burton’s book about the number of artists, authors and poets who came to Chapala for a visit, but never left, I understood. Not only the intelligentsia, but industrialists, diplomats and politicians were enthralled by this unique enclave of beauty. They rode hours by stagecoach and then by boat to arrive, whether from Mexico City or Guadalajara for a vacation, or from Europe on official business, or as dreamers from the United States.

Poet Witter Bynner wrote that “The mind clears in Chapala. Questions answer themselves. Tasks become easy.” In his book, Indian Earth, much of the poetry relates to Chapala. Later in life he bought a home in the village. At one point he lent it to Tennessee Williams, who penned the first draft of A Streetcar Named Desire there. D.H. Lawrence’s first draft of The Plumed Serpent was written during his visit there in 1923. He’d read about Chapala in Terry’s Guide to Mexico, decided to explore the lakeside village, and wrote his wife it was paradise. He urged her and others to come. In his novel he placed the protagonist Kate in the house and grounds he had rented in the village. Charles Embree, another American author, wrote his first novel, A Dream of a Throne, The Story of a Mexican Revolt in Chapala. It was the first novel in any language to be set entirely at Lake Chapala.

From early on, Chapala was a resort town par excellence with thermal baths equal to those in Europe. An American journalist visiting Chapala in 1902 wrote “The baths are of iron and sulphur water and just warm enough to be pleasant.” President Díaz took daily baths in the pools when he came to visit, and artist David Holbrook Kennedy painted murals to adorn the walls. An earthquake causing the waters to be diverted destroyed the baths, but one can still enjoy therapeutic baths at the Balneario San Juan Cosalá and Villa Montecarlo. I’m ashamed to say I lived many years in the area and paid no attention to these thermal waters. Knowing the history of the first baths would have motivated me to test the waters. It’s one aspect of how Burton’s book enriches the area. When we know the history of a place, it speaks to us in new ways.

The house Bynner bought had been owned by the Barragán family. In 1931, Luis Barragán, a family member, along with another architect, Juan Palomar y Arias, renovated the house. Between 1931 and 1936 Barragán renovated or built several homes and gardens in Chapala before moving to Mexico City. He became known around the world for his extraordinary architectural gardens. In 1976 he had a one man showing of his work at MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York City. The museum wrote “His magnificent gardens …are deeply rooted in his country’s cultural and religious traditions.” Barragán was awarded the Pritzker prize, the highest honor an architect can hope to achieve. Jardín del Mago, a landscaped early work he had designed for his sister and brother-in-law, is still in good shape, and I hope open to the public. (Editor: Sadly not, because it is a private residence.) Because of its importance to Chapala’s heritage, Burton feels it deserves stronger protection from the government. It shames me that, although I had written an article on Barragán while living in Ajijic, I had not, until reading Burton’s book, realized his deep connection to Chapala.

Many known architects, not only from the region but also from Europe and the United States, built homes in Chapala. These foreign architects were commissioned by people who came to the area for work or on holiday, fell under the spell of the village, and put down roots. There was a great deal of collaboration among the architects, and Burton tells many stories associated with the architects and the people who lived in their houses. It explains why there are so many homes in Chapala that wouldn’t ordinarily be found in a small Mexican village. One example is Casa Braniff. I’d passed it often, mildly curious, and walked on.

The house was originally built by Luis Pérez Verdía, an influential Guadalajara lawyer and historian. Pérez Verdía commissioned British architect George Edward King, who had already built at least one other home in Chapala. The house, completed in 1905, was later bought by Alberto Braniff, a wealthy Mexico City businessman who wanted the house for his mother. His father, Thomas Braniff, was an Irish-American who had left New York for Mexico in 1863. The house remained in the family until 1952, passing through several hands before its present owners converted it into a restaurant, still with many of its early features. The people who occupied this home lived interesting lives, as did many others in the village. Burton tells us the stories of these wealthy and powerful families that shaped and reshaped the lakeside. The stories give breadth to Chapala due to the distinct background of the people who came and stayed, and in the way they fit into Mexico’s history throughout the years of its greatest change since the coming of Cortés.

Some of the houses remain. Some are gone. All have stories that have given Chapala its distinctive character. There has always been a mix of creativity, business and politics in Chapala’s stories, right down to learning that the ill-fated railroad station has been turned into a cultural center displaying the sculpture of Miguel Miramontes and paintings of Georg Rauch. I knew Georg Rauch, thought he was a fine person and excellent artist, and it pleased me to see he has been honored in this way. It again emphasizes the multicultural diversity of the lakeside region, so clearly brought out in Burton’s telling of its stories.

If Walls Could Talk is laid out in a user-friendly format. There are maps to illustrate where the homes he writes about are located, and he sections his book into a walking tour to match the maps. Small inserts give background on the more illustrious figures, with easy access to each of these inserts from the table of contents. The index is extensive, as is the amount of documented research that Burton has done for this book. I can’t wait to return to Chapala to visit the village with the book in hand. And I hope the Chapala municipality offers to translate this book into Spanish for the enjoyment of its local population because it’s a wonderful historical gift to the people of the village.

***

If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants is available at Villas QQ in Chapala, at La Nueva Posada and Mi México in Ajijic, and via Amazon (both print and Kindle editions).

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According to Soledad: memories of a Mexican childhood

Katie Goodridge Ingram. Sombrero Books, 2020.

Available from Amazon Books: Paperback

Katie Goodridge Ingram’s memoir According to Soledad is a rich and sometimes dark journey into her childhood years growing up in Mexico City and Ajijic, a small fishing village in the state of Jalisco. Her earliest years are spent in an affluent sector of Mexico City with her American parents who are constantly struggling to make ends meet. Very early she’s aware of being the product of two cultures, a perception she handles with true grit and acute perception. Her resilience is admirable. Her vulnerability is heartbreaking.

Ingram chooses the name Soledad for her heroine. She explains before one enters the first pages of the memoir that Soledad means solitude or grieving in Spanish. At first, I found it curious that she preferred not to use her given name even though this is her life story. But while pondering it, I realized from my own writing about my early years that a pseudonym helps to make distance giving a modicum of objectivity. At the same time the name gives us a hint about this child growing up in a culturally rich but emotional unstable home. Ingram is a poet with a masterful understanding of the power of the word, and this is certainly intentional foreshadowing.

According to Soledad gives us a riveting picture of what it was like to grow up in Ingram’s chaotic family. At the same time, it opens us to a full and immediate picture of Mexico during those years. Her use of language is superb. Her descriptions take you right there. There is great mystery and depth to Mexico, much of it illusive. One feels it more than extols it. With great poetic skill Ms Ingram surrounds the magic of what the culture exudes without pinning it down to pedestrian words that would stifle its liminal quality. This took great skill and an innate feel and love for the landscape and people.

In the memoir Soledad’s father deals in rare books. Soledad calls him a Book Man. He travels North and South America in search of old books for his clients. Unexpected finds are kept for himself until he finds the perfect buyer. His love for books is more than a passion. It’s an obsession though the family never comes to label it as such. He is gone a great deal of the time in his desire to unearth the rarest of books. His taste for women is less specialized, and he finds them wherever he goes.

Soledad adores her father, fights her brother Primo for his affection though the brother is obviously the father’s favorite. She waits for him to come home to tell his stories. He’s a story teller and dreams of writing them down one day. Soledad loves his stories. She does her father’s bidding, types his letters, tries to be letter perfect for him, and faithfully writes him when he’s gone. What he gives her is a love of words and an understanding of their inherent value. She grows up to use them in a way that would have made her father proud as is evidenced by her mastery in writing this memoir. If you love words, you will love this book—not wordy, just word perfect.

Her mother is beautiful and creative, and it’s from her mother that Soledad’s inherited her grit. The mother, a seemingly solid fixture in the father’s business, has set aside her calling as a dress designer to work tirelessly in her husband’s rare book business. She spends long hours touching up the colors on recently printed pre-Columbian manuscripts to enhance their value. At the same time, she manages to hold her own in a macho society where she often has to fend for herself, earns money when the family falls short, and still manages to be hostess to the cultural elite of Mexico City. She is jack of all trades and the glue that holds the family together.

For Soledad, her parents are both familiar and foreign. She feels her “whiteness” but her soul is tied to the culture she’s been born into. Pilar, her nurse, is the touchstone to her Mexican identity and in many respects is the family caretaker. She is the constant in an unstable family, and a solace to Soledad through many of her childhood mishaps. She is also a symbol of Mexico’s heart, the Mexico Soledad’s early years are nurtured on.

Whatever is lacking in financial solvency is made up in the family’s rich cultural life. Mexico City in those years thrives on its art and literature and is a Mecca for creative individuals from around the world. Soledad’s family is part of that cultural life. Fascinating people pass through their home, many of whom I’d heard about, some whom I’d known. It brought back a longing nostalgia for me though I’d met many of these people much later in life as I hadn’t grown up in Mexico and only arrived in the sixties.

Soledad’s mother has an affair, tragic and emotionally brutal in its aftermath—and brilliantly handled under the “pen” of Ingram. The family tries to heal, but the father cannot break his weakness for stray women, a pattern of behavior that started long before the mother’s affair. The family separates, and the mother leaves with her three children, the youngest still a baby.

And so life begins again in Ajijic, another place I know well, but again at a much later time. I wish I had been there in Ingram’s time. The physical description she gives of the mountains and lake are never changing, and takes me back to my years there. It reminds me why I loved living in the village. But the life she knew of fishermen mending their boats along the shore and the giant pools in the mango grove where women washed their clothes was long gone by the time I arrived.

Life in the village starts out hard. The mother, self-reliant and determined, makes it work. She eventually remarries, learns to weave her designs into cloth, and starts a thriving business. She creates beautiful clothing that even attracts the wife of the governor of Jalisco. Soledad and her two brothers grow and thrive, each in their own way. Her father dies a horrible, inexpressible death that makes the newspapers in Mexico City.

Some of Ingram’s stories are told in powerful and gritty language. Others are breathtakingly poetic. In her writing, you are present to every moment in the consummate way she uses language. I found myself in turn carried by the beauty of her language and the power of her intent. The country has a magic that she seamlessly captures, and a rawness that she never shies away from. In short, I was always where she wanted me to be.

She writes of an early infatuation with an older boy whom she’s just met secretly:

“I wanted to speak green. I wanted to say what floated away inside of me. I wanted to say the story books of damsels and princes. I wanted to say magic. I wanted to say words for all the colors that came through the sunset tules onto him all in white, words for the last light of the day and the beginning of gray, which took the words away.”

In another place she writes:

“We watched Lara throw up, and then, when she was standing in the mud crying, with blood on her legs, the baby fell out. I saw her pick it up. It was tiny and made the smallest baby noises I had ever heard. The doña ran out of a shed and cut the purple rope that hung from the baby. Everyone knew the girl had to do something, these things are secret. We watched the old woman slide the baby through the mesquite beams of the fence in front of the large black sow so no one would know, so no would find out or tell Lara’s mother. But we saw, and we could not close our eyes.”

According to Soledad is well-paced and beautifully written. Had I never lived in Mexico, I’d have enjoyed the read. Having lived there, it was a coming home to so many place I had known. At all times, the essence of the country is captured, and the child’s perception of her life there is viscerally and vividly portrayed. My only criticism is in not knowing the years in which the memoir takes place. The book is rich in historical perception of a time that has passed, and it would have added to the contextualizing of the story. But my observation does not take away from the beauty of her prose and the power of her story.

I highly recommend Ingram’s memoir. It is time well-spent if only for the sheer beauty of her use of language.

Arts of Mexico

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Chapala: A Formal History

…Ah! Chapala
you have the magic of a story book
stories of sunsets and earthenware,
of romantic moonlit nights

Peaceful Chapala,
your lake – a romantic bride
like none other..

Chapala, embedded in the central part of Jalisco, is “a place of flower vases of fragrant clay and small earthenware pots”, known also as “The Wet or Soaked Place” or “A Place for Ducking into the Water” – this is the town after which Mexico’s most important lake was named.

In the beginning, Chapala, or “Chapalean” was a pre-Hispanic settlement dating back to sometime in the XII century A.D., when a migrating tribe of náhuatl indians, originating from the northwestern section of the country, settled here and found the northern shore of the lake already quite populated, as was described by Friar Antonio Tello, a Franciscan historian. Four centuries later, in the year 1524, once they amalgamated with the Coca and Cazcano indians who inhabited the shore from Poncitlán to Jocotepec, including Ajijic and Cosalá, together with Friar Juan de Padilla and a soldier, Alonso de Avalos, the domain of Chapalean was recognized as part of the New World.

The benefits of the evangelization by the Franciscan Fathers Friar Miguel de Bolonia, friar Martín de Jesús, or the Coruña, and Friar Juan de Amolón, were the construction of Axixic (Ajijic) convent, in 1531, and the Tlayacapan Church of San Antonio, the Chapala convent having been built in 1584. Of the three aforementioned, only the tower or steeple of the original San Antonio Tlayacapan church still remains. The parish churches of Chapala and Ajijic were started in the XVIII century with the secularization of religious buildings for the Franciscan Missionaries. From the XVI to the XVIII centuries Chapala was only partially commissioned by the Spanish Crown, being inhabited mainly by indians, in spite of the fact that the process of European colonization had started back in the XVI century.

In addition to the first European colonization in the XVI century, the period 1895 to the decade of the ’30s of the twentieth century, Chapala gave shelter among its population to a good number of foreigners of diverse nationalities, as well as to those of our fellow countrymen who began promoting tourism along the lakeside. Thus, the appearance of this “small fisherman’s village,” as described by Father Jesús T. Orozco, the town’s parish priest at the beginning of the century, was transformed by the first summer residences of neoclassic Mediterranean style, such as the “Casa Braniff” (now the Cazadores Restaurant), the building located at the corner of Degollado and Zaragoza streets (“Calvary” and “Fishing” streets until 1913), the building of the old Hotel Palmera and Hotel Niza, presently known as the Hotel Nido, and also the residences which can be seen along the boardwalk that leads to Francisco Madero Avenue (Beer Garden) where the Arzapalo Hotel, inaugurated in 1898, was located, as well as the Telegraph and Post Office building, to name but a few.

The Town Hall (Palacio Municipal) and the old Railroad Station were built between 1913 and 1930. This railroad was the first and only service there was connecting Chapala with Guadalajara and on to the north of the country, and by way of Mexico City, to the rest of the world. This building represents the beginning of the “Grand Epoque” of the Chapala lakeside when Guadalajara high society spent their weekends here and came especially during Holy Week and the Christmas Holiday.

With the introduction of the railroad, better alternatives were offered for the economic growth of the region, besides providing “a pleasure trip instead of a sacrifice”, as the railroad was more comfortable than the stage coaches which took up to 12 hours to make the trip, or the “Wichita” buses with big solid rubber tires, which also took a minimum of 5 hours to cover the same distance that the railroad did in 3 hours from Guadalajara to the “charming resort of Chapala.”

At present, access to any point in the country is easy and fast, by land or by air. Chapala and the lakeside are only 20 minutes away from the Guadalajara International Airport. Also, the Guadalajara-Chapala highway connects with those that lead to Mexico City and the northern part of the country, as well as with the highway to Puerto Vallarta and the southern part of Jalisco and also with the highway to Michoacan, and to the south along the Pacific coast.

As for the tourist accommodations, its hotel infrastructure offers alternatives ranging from 2 to 5 star hotels, as well as a good number of bars and restaurants where you can enjoy delicious Mexican and international cuisine; also cafeterias, banking facilities and currency exchange houses.

Recreation possibilities are many – water skiing, triathlon contests, sailing and regattas organized by the local Yacht Club. There are two islands in the lake, the largest is the Isle of Scorpions directly in front of the town of Chapala, where, besides the beautiful natural scenery, one can enjoy delicious Mexican cuisine. The other is the Island of Mezcala, facing the town of the same name, eastwards from Chapala, and where the ruins can still be seen of a fort taken over by the movement of the Mexican Independence, between 1812 and 1816, and which constitutes one of the four Spanish forts which to this day still exist; the San Juan de Ulúa Fort in Veracruz, the San Diego Fort in Acapulco and Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City.

Among the local important festivities is the Carnival, most often in February, which is very popular and begins with the traditional “burial of Bad Humor”, the the beautiful floats, costumed and masked groups, followed by “serenades” to the Carnival Queen and the crowning of “The Ugly King” in the Main Plaza. An established custom – after participating in the masked groups and attending the bull fights, the people go around cracking egg shells filled with aniline, and offering carnations to all the girls.

Another eye-catching aspect are the beautiful fireworks which become a real competition to see who creates the “best castle” (fireworks scaffold) or the “best little bull”. Sports events, Mexican rodeo stunts, donkey races, the waiters’ races, the masked group contest, the floats and the masquerade balls, all make this an outstanding and colorful festivity.

The Patron Saint of Chapala is Saint Francis of Assisi, and between the end of September and the first days of October, festivities in his honor begin with a novena, ending October 4th. The entire community takes part in the solemn processions organized by the different sections of the town, all terminating at the church atrium. Here too, beautiful fireworks as well as popular evening festivities take place in the Main Plaza.

As from 1995, the month of November has been designated as the period for the Fiestas Commemorating the Beginnings and Historical aspects of Chapala, featuring outstanding cultural events for the whole family and for all choices, making this the town’s most important celebration.

In addition to all the above mentioned attractions, our lakeside community invites you to come and enjoy wonderful natural scenery and the interesting and contrasting architecture.

Chapala, always near to you!

Historian and Chronicler: Bernardo Sandy Ramirez

Note: The history of Chapala and Ajijic are explored in more detail in two books by Tony Burton: “Foreign Footprints in Ajijic: decades of change in a Mexican village” and “If Walls Could Talk: Chapala’s historic buildings and their former occupants” (also available in Spanish as “Si las paredes hablaran: Edificios históricos de Chapala y sus antiguos ocupantes.”)

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A native of Guadalajara, artist Enrique Velazquez has made his home in Ajijic since 1989, painting and selling from his Arte Estudio on 16 de Septiembre, (a block east of Morelos), which he shares with his wife, Belva, also an artist. Together they are raising three children, two boys and a girl, while capturing Mexican landscapes of an area they both love, for the enjoyment of future generations.

When you speak with Enrique Velazquez he conveys a warmth and candor that are genuine. It extends to his work; when you look at a Velazquez landscape, you are part of it, invited to enjoy it from within; there is no boundary either culturally or visually that excludes you from the enjoyment, no message designed to separate or instruct, just an invitation to share an instant which moved the artist, and was captured for no other purpose.

When I asked him at what age did he know he wanted to become an artist, Enrique replied without hesitation, “Since I could think about it.” He remembers in primary school being asked to submit a drawing and supplying four instead! He has drawn continuously since. Encouragement came from many sources, people who saw in his burgeoning talent the promise of the artist yet unrevealed.

This and his basic desire propelled him to study Fine Arts at the University of Guadalajara, developing the technique and skills, which would enable him to succeed as a working artist. He was fortunate enough to have some exceptional teachers, among them, Alfonso de Lara Gallardo, Jesus Mata and Thomas Coffeen, each distinguished and well-known in Jalisco. Under their tutelage, his gift for depiction, and capturing feelings with his images, was greatly enhanced.

Velazquez works principally in watercolors, sometimes acrylics, and also does pen & ink drawings. He tries to paint everyday, although the pressures of running a business and raising children sometimes keep him from his art. He finds inspiration in the landscapes, the countryside surrounding the lake, in the streets of the pueblo, and the character of the Mexican people, particularly the elderly. He prefers to create where the scene presents itself, but sometimes relies on photographs and private vision to fill out a painting.

Once, while simultaneously finishing two floral works, he started a third with the paint left over on the palette, so as not to waste it. The image, which sprang entirely from his mind’s eye, was of an old man in serape, seated on the street. He remembers that it was completed in 45 minutes, and was the first painting to be sold at an early exhibition of his works in San Antonio. You never know where inspiration will come from, but the transformation must first take place inside the artist, and the resulting product is recognizably and powerfully, Velazquez.

It was difficult to make a living as a working artist in Guadalajara and Enrique moved to Lakeside in part for the ambiance, the picturesque views, but also the growing popularity of his work with members of the foreign community. He opened his first gallery in 1993, three blocks from its current location, which he and Belva purchased in 1995.

Together, they have also received local and international attention for a calendar, which they have produced for the past 8 years entitled, “Mi Viejo Mexico.” They are extremely attractive bilingual calendars featuring works in watercolor and pen & ink, and have become something of a collector’s item here and abroad. If for nothing else than to check out this year’s offering and meet the talented pair, we urge you to visit their Arte Estudio in Ajijic, and see why this community is proud of its designation as an artist’s colony.

This article appears courtesy of the Chapala Review, a monthly Newspaper published in Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico. The focus is the Lake Chapala area. The goal is to provide quality information about the area, its stories, events, history, culture and people.

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Posted by Richard Alt on July 30, 1997:

My wife and I have just returned from Ajijic. While there we toured real estate with a very competent man. We are currently negotiating for a property which is a walled lot with all utilities installed, a basic foundation, cistern, etc. for a small home. What we are trying to determine now is what the cost per square foot will be for average construction. We realize that costs can very greatly due to luxury ammenities. That’s why I indicated average or middle of the road construction costs. Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Re: Building costs

Posted by Ernie Gorrie on July 30, 1997:

I can’t comment specifically on the Lake Chapala area, but I can give you an idea of costs in the Zihuatanejo area.

We are building a 96 sq meter (1033 sq ft) house outside of Zihuatanejo. The builder estimated US$25-$30/sq ft. The costs went up considerably when we moved from a tile roof to a poured slab flat deck roof that we can finish off as a second floor if we want to later.

Currently, we are looking at CDN$84,000 (approximately US$60,000). This is on raw land. We needed to put in a septic system, hook up to electricity, clear the lot, etc. This price includes the IMSS fees, architect fees, permits, etc.

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