How They Pulled It Off: A Whisper of a Kitchen Table in Todos Santos

Welcome to How They Pulled It Off, where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.  

Greg Armas, the founder of boutique and fashion label Assembly New York, came to Todos Santos from Los Angeles by way of Tijuana, kicking off 20 years of trips with friends from Los Angeles. Armas fell in love with the area’s slow pace and soulful energy, and those trips became an annual pilgrimage. When he met his now wife, Gabriela Minguez, in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic, he was eager to share the place he loved. Eventually, the pair made their way to Todo Santos that same year, and started the search for a home away from home. 

The couple were initially on the hunt for a fixer-upper, but one fateful night under a palapa-roofed taco stand led them to something completely different: an empty parcel land overlooking the water. Despite the change in plans, they knew immediately it was the spot for them. "It’s on a beautiful little crest, right where the desert and the ocean meet," says Greg. "I just loved it."

With the land purchased, the couple now faced a bigger challenge: deciding what to build, despite neither having designed or built a home before. However, both had design inclinations: in addition to Greg's background at Assembly, Gabriela is a clothing designer. "It was a long process of figuring out what the rules were for the house. You have this blank piece of paper and it can become anything," says Greg. Editing their abundance of ideas became foundational to the design. "We’re not stark minimalists, but we’re definitely reductionists. If something doesn’t need to be there, [we ask] if it’s possible to remove it." 

It was that reductionist philosophy—along with a keen awareness of their lifestyle in Mexico—that led to the home’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kitchen table. "I have a design issue with seeing elements that you’re not using. I’ve always been challenged by appliances in general, especially a huge oven or a stove taking up so much square footage in your home. There’s so much visual weight to it. It’s there one-hundred percent of the time when you probably use it no more than four percent of the time," says Greg. "The idea of vanity kitchens—the big Viking appliances, the fake chef faucet—all that was really lost on me. Can we just make the kitchen disappear?"

How they pulled it off: A lighter-than-air kitchen table 

• Having a chef’s kitchen was never a priority for the couple. "Todos Santos has too many amazing restaurants. Being there, we don’t stay home and cook every meal," says Greg. "The kitchen isn’t the heart of the home, so to speak. It’s centrally located, but it doesn’t have that same gravity. My hope was that you didn’t really think of it as a kitchen." Rather than an island or an enclosed structure, the concept began as a tall table with nothing underneath it just space for light, shadow, and air to pass through it. 
• Functionally, the table has two open burners while an oven and refrigerator are hidden behind a curtain for the occasional labor intensive meal. The couple have managed to make things work when hosting. "We’ve had the whole family there for Christmas dinner," says Greg.

• Despite the table’s lithe appearance, it’s surprisingly sturdy—weighing approximately 150 pounds. It’s constructed from one-inch tubular steel with four legs anchoring into the concrete floor for added stability.

• Given that the water and gas lines are exposed, visitors are forewarned that it’s not the most kid- (or dog-) friendly environment. "At the floor level, there is a small kind of facade that protects the valve and the base of the hoses so that no one could trip on it or a dog can’t get caught around it," says Greg. Thankfully, so far it’s been a foolproof solution. "Having that whole liturgy be very honest and transparent was part of that idea for us. We would have built something just to make you not see the hoses." 

"To accomplish the simplicity of that table, like most simple things, required a lot of hidden work," says Greg. But, as predicted, the extra legwork early on has been worth it in the end. "When you’re on a vacation, you don’t want things tricky."

Project Credits: 

Designers: Greg Armas and Gabriela Minguez

Project Manager: Juan Segovia

Photographer: Sioux Sakai

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