AJIJIC VILLAGE HOMES
AJIJIC VILLAGE HOMES
For interior designer Harold Babcock, the picturesque town of Ajijic is the ideal retirement spot. A former partner of designer Robert Dirstein's and co-owner with Gary Zanner of Babcock Zanner of Toronto, he and friend Minor Halliday took vacations in the area for many years before buying a home there. "[Canadian arts philanthropist] Joan Chalmers talked me into coming down here because of the glorious climate," Harold explains. "I saw this house 25 years ago and fell in love with it then, but we thought it was too large. Finally it came up on the market, and we couldn't resist."
A narrow,
arched Moorish entrance hall leads to the loggia's intricate wrought-iron gates.
Inside, the sweet scent of papaya hangs in the air at the entrance to the spectacular loggia. Its openness allows light to pour in from the adjacent sunken courtyard, while breezes circulate to keep the room refreshingly cool during the hottest times of the day. At night, dramatic lighting is supplied by perforated tin lanterns and sconces in myriad shapes that hang from the ceiling or sit on the loggia's tiled floors. On the back wall, two brass and silver wired obelisk lanterns flank a traditional Biedermeier chest.
"What I wanted in this room was a shade of terracotta that I had found on a colour chart in Toronto," Harold says. "I took it to the local paint guy, and he mixed quite a brilliant orange and put it on the courtyard walls and the exterior of the house. I came down one morning and I said, 'No, it needs more brown,' and went out for the day. But when I came back, I really liked it! It looked so Mexican. In fact I loved it so much I used it on the walls of the loggia." [The loggia features five floor-to-ceiling wrought-iron arched gates copied from the Moorish originals in the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain.]
Harold's enthusiasm for Mexican style and creativity is evident: His home is filled with carved armoires and exquisite wrought-iron tables and chandeliers, sculpted stone pedestals and hand-painted tiles, all by Mexican artisans.
At night, the courtyard becomes an
enchanted garden illuminated by tin lanterns surrounding the pool. Harold does
much of his entertaining in the courtyard, a lush oasis dominated by a swimming
pool of monumental proportions. A 20-foot-high blue-tiled backsplash, which he
dryly refers to as "the Jolly Green Giant's urinal" is built into a retaining
wall and immediately draws the eye skyward to the U-shaped rooftop garden.
On the upper level, private terraces lead to upper
bedrooms where clay and stone finials perch amid cascading bougainvillea.
"Harold is a wonderful cook and loves entertaining, especially dining under the
stars," says visiting friend Trudie Nelson. "That's what is so wonderful here -
it's such a relaxed lifestyle, and everyone takes turns having each other over."
The upper courtyard was designed as an intimate dining 
area.
Harold worked with landscape architect Alexandro Trevino in designing the
courtyard. The stone sculpture at the end
of the pool depicts two children and a dog in a boat, a popular motif
(symbolizing love and protection) in the folk art of a nearby region. Tropical
greenery is abundant: Orchids and fragrant rosemary bushes are dwarfed by potted
fish-tailed palms and towering halliconio, with their banana tree-like leaves
and red bird-of-paradise-type blossoms. There's also a verdant feel to the
private terrace adjoining the courtyard, where red, pink and coral geraniums
tumble over braided-style urns and ivy trails across the surrounding retaining
wall in a lattice pattern. Harold trained the ivy to grow in this shape in order
to echo the diamond-pattern design of the brick terrace floor.
On the opposite side of the courtyard, the living room's Spanish colonial furniture gives it a kind of rustic warmth, while a dash of eclecticism is provided by the conversation pieces such as a rare, full-scale wooden horse once used as a photographer's prop and shipped in pieces from Germany, and Harold's collection of engravings and paintings of monkeys. [The paintings, surrounded by religious artifacts, are copies of original screens displayed in a Mexico City museum. An original music score, once owned by conductor Leopold Stokowski, hangs above the fireplace in the Moorish-style alcove. The 30-foot ceiling, from which tin chandeliers are suspended, is constructed of wooden beams and Mexican petate matting.]
The only major renovation Harold Babcock undertook on the property was to convert the living room windows into imposing 30-foot glass and wrought-iron doors leading to the terrace.
The study is a quiet refuge for Minor Halliday and Harold.
The stone
pedestal sink in the exotic Moorish-style bathroom off the guest room was
sculpted by a local artisan. The shower stall, with its Moroccan keyhole-shaped
doorway, is topped by a dome.
All of the furniture in Minor's bedroom was made by Mexican
artisans. The armoire is decorated with a hand-painted landscape of the Sierra
Madre mountains. Harold based the design of the ornate wrought-iron bed on a
photograph he saw in a magazine. French doors lead onto the landscaped rooftop
terrace and flood the room with light. 
The intricately carved headboards in Harold's light-filled guest room were picked up near Ajijic.
"I used to be madly in love with France and Italy," Harold says. "But now I prefer it here. The people are wonderful, and you can still feel that you are getting away from civilization if you need to. There's everything here - great cultural history and a rich architectural legacy."