During his travels in Mexico, Los Angeles architect Steve Straughan couldn’t help but fall in love with the sleepy little surfing village of Troncones, which is some 20 miles north of the resort city of Zihuatanejo. He doesn’t have a surfboard, mind you, but he figured “this little piece of heaven,” which has a population that barely tops 500, would be a good place to entertain family and friends who do like to ride the waves.
His beachside vacation condo, one of 35 in the Pacific Coast development Punta Majahua, was still under construction when he acquired it, which allowed him to customize the interior to suit his lifestyle and his sizable collection of contemporary Mexican artworks. “I wanted to make it mine,” he says. “I wanted the interiors to look different from those of the other units.”
The half-dozen low-rise buildings in the development, which includes a communal swimming/lap pool and a paddleboard court, attracted his attention because they are chic beach creatures—undulating, organic sculptures whose gentle curves mimic the waves of the water they front.
With the help of Los Angeles interior designer Jen Dallas, Straughan created a more contemporary space by reconfiguring the condo’s layout, enlarging the kitchen and opening up the rooms to create a central living and dining area that melds into the outdoor living room, which is appointed with a plunge pool and a shower. “The three spaces feel good as one space, but each is comfortable and unique,” Straughan says. “The art and furniture connect them, and a large sliding-door system brings the outdoors in. In Mexico, the weather’s beautiful, so I want to spend as much time outside as possible.”
To merge the indoor and outdoor spaces, Dallas says, “we played off the Mexican seaside, which is grey and rustic, and brought in the idea of grasses, pebbles, rocks, bamboo, blue skies, and sunsets through textures and colors.”
They began with the interior finishes, selecting troweled-smooth white plaster for the main walls and grey plaster in the two bedrooms to create a rich yet neutral background for Straughan’s art, much of which is displayed on the curved wall of the entry hall. The floors, Mexican limestone, “have the look and gritty feel of Troncones beach sand,” Straughan says. Instead of built-in furniture, which the other units have, Straughan and Dallas created custom designs that were executed by Mexican artisans. “There’s not a lot of furniture, but each piece is significant and adds value to what we were creating,” Dallas says.
The interior design scheme was inspired by a whimsical floor lamp whose base is the three-pronged branch of an olive tree and whose top is crowned by a skirt of raffia. The bamboo pendant that hangs over the dining table, which Straughan says is “magical” when illuminated, complements the lamp. Their forms echo those of the vine-entwined metal and bamboo trellises at the community’s swimming pool and are a nod to the bamboo overhang of the condo’s outdoor room.
The round dining table, which like many of the furnishings is made of local parota wood, is a foil for the ceiling fan in the adjoining guest bedroom, which is separated from the main spaces by elegantly casual sliding shutter-like slatted doors made of parota wood. Its chairs are upholstered in an orange-hued performance fabric that adds a casual air to their formality. “They are made,” Straughan says, “for sitting in your bathing suit.”
In the primary bedroom suite, a vintage French-style chair and a colorful portrait, taken from Straughan’s Los Angeles house, set the stage for the voluminous linen-cotton draperies, in a terra-cotta color, that partition the bed from the bath. The primary shower picks up on the home’s artistic theme: It features a black-and-white abstract mural, envisioned by Straughan and painted by a local artist.
The kitchen, which is where Straughan’s friends and family hang out when he cooks, is defined by the central island, which, like the counters, is topped by white Caesarstone, a treatment that Straughan says was selected to create a “light, bright, airy, and fresh look.”
Dallas and Straughan had so much fun working together that they were almost sorry when the project was completed. They are kicking around the idea of doing another project together soon. “I have enough art for three homes, but I only own two,” Straughan says. “I’ll just have to find a second home in Mexico.”
“Let’s do it,” Dallas replies.