Favorites

Oliver found the paintings in a secondhand shop. “Lanzarote was often the victim of piracy in earlier centuries,” he explains. The round tables, painted with Mayan motifs, came from a local Mexican restaurant

The cabinets and staircase are made from local wood, the bean bag was a present from Bernjus.

Stylist and design consultant Oliver Schmid bought an abandoned, century-old house and transformed it into El Patio del Charco, a two-level vacation rental in Arrecife, on the eastern coast.

A few feet from the beach, Luc Carpentier turned a hidden bungalow into his new home. “I asked Alexander to do the renovation because I admire the way he interprets Manrique’s style,” he says.

Guido stands in the kitchen, located at the highest point in the multilevel house.

The rear terrace’s flourishing garden includes butterfly-attracting Asclepias plants, an almond tree, and grasses and sages that bring bees. “In spring, the air is filled with their buzzing,” says Hernán.

Explaining the unfinished crack in the wall, he says: “Once we did the demolition, it became obvious that it could remain in that state as a sort of folly for the garden. It's also a kind of visual centrifugal force, as you see it all the time while circulating from the living room to the bedrooms.”

Pink terrazzo treads give a sense of lightness to the home’s patinated outdoor spaces.

At one end of the living room, tall glass doors lead to an interior garden and one of the four openings—in this case more of a crack—that Hernán made between the houses. “It’s Luisa’s favorite place to hide when we play hide-and-seek,” he says.