A hacienda where you feel at home

WHAT

Torres del Fuerte Hotel

WHERE

102 Rodolfo G. Robles

El Fuerte, Sinaloa, Mexico

WHY TAKE A DETOUR

As you stroll down a quiet, cobblestone street in El Fuerte, Mexico, the front of one simple home is indistinguishable from the next. Then you step through the unpretentious white stucco entrance to Torres del Fuerte Hotel and enter an oasis. Jesus Torres, 62, grasps your hands and says, “Welcome to my family’s hacienda.”

The portico, supported by pillars of 200-year-old, hand-carved limestone, doubles as a gallery of Latin American art. Statues woven from grasses harvested from Lake Patzcuaro blend with oil paintings and colonial Mexican antiques. Water flows from a handmade aqueduct above the portico, cascading from a lion’s mouth onto a mermaid’s tail in a shallow pool below. Peach and rose bougainvillea cling to the courtyard walls near a pond where a dozen ducklings form a flotilla behind their mother. Torres strolls to a nearby tree to pick fresh limes for your welcoming beer.

The homestead, once abandoned, has been restored, using materials made when the Torreses’ ancestors owned the property nearly 200 years ago. The palapa bar is slatted with timbers from the ruins of Mexican kitchens salvaged from the countryside. You can still see smoke stains from meals cooked a century ago.

“We didn’t want the phony, cliche Mexican look,” says Francisco Torres, 37, who with his mother designed the interior. “A house like this would have been built by a wealthy landowner and silver trader who would travel to Europe. With pride, he would point out the art he had brought back from Paris, Morocco or China. It’s an eclectic mix of New and Old World.”

GETTING THERE

Reach El Fuerte (90 minutes east of Los Mochis) by Copper Canyon Railway. When you make your hotel reservation, ask the Torreses to send a taxi to the station at your arrival time. It’s also possible to reach El Fuerte by bus or private plane.

DETAILS

011-52-698-893-1974, www.hotelestorres.com

If you are in El Fuerte, the Torres family welcomes you to visit the gallery and grounds. If you decide to stay, rates for the 25 rooms are $100 for a single and $120 for a double. When the spa and swimming pool are complete next year, rates will be $130 and $170. Bonifacio’s, a small gourmet restaurant in the old chapel, requires reservations.