Casa Jazmin sits in the Malanquin district, 10 to 12 minutes by car from the Centro of San Miguel de Allende. The home was built to take advantage of the site and furnished to reflect the city it looks over. What follows is an account of both.
The Site
A hillside chosen for its light.
San Miguel de Allende sits at 1,900 meters on the high desert plateau of central Mexico. The quality of light here is the reason painters arrived first, and the reason the city has never quite left the consciousness of people who visit it. Casa Jazmin was positioned on the hillside above the centro so that its rear opens onto the town, every level along the back of the house takes in the city, the sunsets, and the festival skies.
The property drops across three terraced levels from the street. Each level has a different relationship to the view. The upper floor catches morning light through east-facing windows and the last of the afternoon through the west. The garden level, nearest the pool, is coolest and most sheltered. The main floor lives in between: warmest in the afternoon, best for long evenings on the sundeck.
The Artisans
Every piece made in San Miguel de Allende.
The furnishings throughout Casa Jazmin were commissioned from local San Miguel de Allende craftspeople. The tradition of artisan production here runs deep: ironwork, carved wood, hand-laid tile, woven textiles. The city has sustained workshops producing these materials for generations.
The result is an interior that could not have been assembled from a catalog. The dining table, the ironwork on the stair rail, the tilework in the bathrooms: each piece has a maker, a workshop, an address in town. The home is a collection of San Miguel de Allende craft, presented without annotation.
The Architecture
Three floors that respond to the slope.
The structure follows the hillside rather than fighting it. Each of the three floors steps into the terrain at a different level, which gives every floor its own relationship to the garden and the city. There are no views that feel forced or framed. They arrive naturally as you move through the house.
The sunken living room on the main floor is the house's most deliberate gesture: a social space that pulls people down into it rather than presenting them at standing height. Above it, the kitchen and sundeck continue at grade. Below it, the garden-level bedrooms open directly to the pool.
The Name
Jasmine. Grown on the property.
The jasmine that names the house grows along the garden walls and up through the lower terrace. In San Miguel de Allende, jasmine blooms through spring and into the rainy season. The scent is strongest in the early morning and again at dusk, which are also the hours when the hillside is at its quietest.
The name was not a marketing decision. It is the first thing guests tend to notice when they arrive in the evening, before they have seen the view.
The Complete Picture
A house is more interesting than a hotel. It has a specific position, a specific history, a specific set of objects. Casa Jazmin has all three.