We curate art you can live in.
An atelier has no catalogue. It has commissions. Every house that comes through is studied, fitted and accompanied on its own terms, because no two are alike and none is solved by the same formula.
Conservation
Intervention
Atelier is the word a trade uses when the work is done one at a time.
The tailor's workshop, the artist's, the architect's. They share one thing: nobody walks in to buy what was already made. Measurements are taken, the body is understood, the piece is fitted until it falls right.
The real estate market works the other way around. It lists everything, speaks to everyone, and trusts volume to find someone. It is a standard-sizes business dressed up as personal service.
We work by commission. One house at a time, for as long as that house asks for. Which is why we have no endless inventory and no hurry to close: we have a short collection and a workshop that does not let go of it.
Three kinds of work,
one standard
Choosing, keeping and intervening are the same skill applied at different moments in the life of a house.
Choosing the piece
We search, we read, we place. Every house enters the Collection with its own catalogue entry, art direction and investment model. We only take on what we can defend.
- Terms
- Exclusive listing
- Model
- Commission on sale
Keeping the piece
A work needs someone to maintain it. Site visits, garden and pool, utilities, trades, tenancy if the house should earn, and a photographic report every month.
- Terms
- 12 months, renewable
- Model
- Flat fee or % of rent
Fitting the piece
Restoration, remodelling and construction. The least intervention needed for the house to say again what it knows how to say, without erasing its age or inventing it a style.
- Terms
- Per project
- Model
- Fees credited back
Intervention fees are credited against the conservation or sale agreement that follows from the project.
A bespoke suit does not start with the cloth. It starts with the measurements.
We take measurements
We visit the house and record its real condition: materials, damp, systems, orientation, authorship, history of interventions. What an appraisal does not record and a buyer does pay for.
We propose the cut
We tell you what should be done with it and what should not: place it, keep it, work on it, or wait. With numbers and with reasons. Sometimes the advice is not to sell yet.
We fit it
Photography, catalogue entry, its own narrative and, where needed, construction. No house leaves the workshop wearing the last one’s presentation.
We stay on
After signing, we continue. The notary, the property tax, the trades, the maintenance. A commission does not end on closing day.
Pieces
currently held
Each carries a catalogue number. When it changes hands it does not disappear: it stays on record and passes to its next custodians.
Casa Legorreta
Solid walls, a courtyard of deep shade and a staircase that rations light like a scarce resource. Architecture that needs no furniture to exist.
- Area
- Centro Histórico
- Material
- Cantera stone · Lime plaster
- Size
- 420 m² · Lot 610 m²
Casa Hikari
An exercise in restraint: open plan, oak joinery and windows facing sunrise over the sierra. Minimum upkeep, maximum presence.
- Area
- Balcones
- Material
- Exposed concrete · Oak
- Size
- 310 m² · Lot 480 m²
Residencia Mítico
Original Catalan vaulting restored without erasing its age. The intervention is legible, and that is the point: the value lies in the honesty of the repair.
- Area
- Ojo de Agua
- Material
- Brick vaulting · Clay
- Size
- 385 m² · Lot 520 m²
Casa Estrato
A stepped volume on natural slope. Each level earns a different view of town without stealing the one below. A difficult lot, intelligently resolved.
- Area
- El Edén
- Material
- Local stone · Steel
- Size
- 295 m² · Lot 740 m²
Buying in Mexico
as a foreigner
San Miguel sits outside the restricted zone. That makes the process simpler than most people assume.
No bank trust required
The title is in your name
The constitutional restriction applies within 50 km of the coast and 100 km of the border. San Miguel is in neither: a foreigner acquires outright, with no bank trust (fideicomiso) and none of its annual cost.
The notary is the central figure
In Mexico the notary attests the deed, reviews title, checks for liens and withholds taxes. This is not paperwork: it is the legal guarantee of the transaction. The notary is chosen, and the choice matters.
The historic centre has its own rules
San Miguel is a World Heritage site. Facade, height, stonework and colour go through INAH and municipal regulation. Knowing what is permitted before you sign is the difference between a restoration and a dispute.
Closing costs fall to the buyer
Acquisition tax, registry, notary fees and appraisal. We give you the estimated breakdown before you make an offer, not after.
After signing, the long part begins
Property tax, utilities, maintenance and a house that will stand empty much of the year. This is where most agencies say goodbye. We stay on: that is Conservation.
General guidance only. This is not legal or tax advice; every transaction is reviewed with a notary.
Manuel Eguía
Founder
Whoever cannot read a space cannot know what it is worth. That judgement isn’t studied; it accumulates.
We curate art you can live in.
The workshop’s standard
The eye
I learned to look before I learned to draw. A self-taught draughtsman: the eye came from stopping at how light fell across a wall, and why one proportion felt right and another didn’t.
The real education
Architecture at IBERO, then the years with Herman Miller: furniture fairs across different countries, talking to the people who made what I admired. Why one piece lasts fifty years and another lasts three.
The trade
One significant project set off the first furniture store in Torreón, then a specialised design store carrying some of the most serious brands in the world. Design and business stopped being two trades.
The Atelier
In San Miguel, an art gallery and the hospitality business. Each venture widened the same thing: understanding a space from the inside. Atelier brings together thirty years of learning by doing.
