Inside Yucatán: Hidden Mérida and Beyond

At the beginning of the 20th century, the city of Mérida, capital of Yucatán, had more millionaires than any other city in the world. They built and transformed sumptuous mansions nestled in the surrounding tropical vegetation like hidden gems. Over time, nature reclaimed its rights, leaving ruined structures in place of the once lively and richly decorated estates. But today, Yucatán’s “forsaken, decaying ruins, remnants of an illustrious past . . . are awakening from a centuries–old siesta.”

This book reveals the faded splendour of houses that have been both neglected and restored. It presents 27 residences across the peninsula, in which decadence and beauty shine through the remains of diverse and contrasting styles, from colonial to Renaissance, medieval to Moorish, and sometimes a combination of all these styles. To place the houses in context, three maps of the region illustrated by artist Jesús Cisneros were specially commissioned for this book.