Pátzcuaro’s Casa de la Real Aduana: the Ultimate Craft Hotel
This sidebar is a supplement to Can Pátzcuaro and Surrounding Colonial Crafts Towns Survive Modern Mexico?
There are many lovely places to stay in Pátzcuaro, but the Casa de la Real Aduana, just off the square, is special. The 16th-century colonial tax collector house has only five guest rooms, each exquisitely decorated with the finest examples of Michoacan crafts — textiles, pottery, metalwork, masks, and furniture. Every corner of the hotel, like the mantelpiece in the sala with several of Manuel Morales’ pots, is a visual vignette.
The garden is impeccably kept, filled with a whimsical giant chess set, pots from the region, and flowering plants.
The owners, French photographer Didier Dorval and his Mexican wife Gemma Macouzet, are artists and collectors with refined tastes (their collection of European paintings will amaze you, too, with familiar names they’d rather not advertise). At $200-300 per night, the hotel is in the luxury category, but it an aesthetic experience you won’t want to miss. (Prices were accurate at the time of publication, but may be subject to change).
Casa de la Real Aduana: Ponce de Leon 16, Centro, info@realaduana.com
