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NATURAL WONDER VANCOUVER ARTIST PATRICIA LARSEN’S UNIQUE MEXICAN RETREAT SEAMLESSLY MELDS NEUTRAL TONES AND ORGANIC TEXTURES.

By BARBARA SGROI | Photography by HEATHER ROSS

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Styling by Heather Ross

The living and dining rooms are divided by a dual-sided brick fireplace in the centre. The home’s open plan and neutral palette make it easy to swap furniture from one room to the next. Casually placed beneath a simple farmhouse dining table, a cowhide rug is perfectly in sync with the rustic decor. Coral (on table), Heather Ross In House. OPPOSITE: Homeowner Patricia Larsen often creates displays with found objects; here, plant remnants plonked in an old pot provide beautiful silhouettes.

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“I consider the whole house my studio; if paint drips on the floor, it doesn’t bother me”

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For a dramatic contrast to the wicker settee’s stark simplicity, Patricia stained the raw plaster walls in the open-air studio-sitting room with a mix of mud, graphite and plaster. The table is made out of a hunk of weather-beaten wood she found and placed on bricks as a base. To match the natural mood of the decor, Patricia’s daughter wove a seat out of local rope for the old metal Acapulco chair. RIGHT: Artist Patricia Larsen.

“No house should ever be on any hill,” wrote American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. “It should be of the hill, belonging to it, so hill and house could live together each the happier for the other.” If ever there were a house that perfectly exemplifies Wright’s ideal of organic unity between slope and shelter, between habitat and environment, it’s the one that Vancouver artist Patricia Larsen calls home near the tip of Baja, Mexico. Just south of the Tropic of Cancer, it’s a 45-minute drive from Cabo San Lucas, and far, far from everything most people take for granted. Set on a hill overlooking the Sierra la Laguna mountains, the Pacific Ocean in the distance, and miles of desert in between, the spartan structure is so sympathetic to the brutal beauty of this setting that it seems to be an integral part of its surroundings — an observation that makes Patricia smile. “I wanted it to look like it was part of the earth,” she says, her bare feet planted in the sun-parched desert dirt as she surveys the house that makes her so happy — a simple, 1,300-square-foot, one-bedroom concreteblock-and-plaster home she had built in 2008, much to her own surprise. “I think of myself as quite an urban person, so I was looking for a historic ruin in a city when, while visiting the Baja, friends showed me this 604-square-metre piece of property in the hills, out of town,” she recalls. “I loved the colours, the air, the sky, the weather, the amazing light, the combination of desert and ocean. I recognized that this is where CONTINUED ON PAGE 94 I want to work.” SEE SOURCE GUIDE

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Open shelves in the living room serve as both storage and display for Patricia’s collection of Mexican pottery and natural artifacts. TOP CENTRE: The kitchen’s rawconcrete sink is modern yet reminiscent of old farmhouse ones. ABOVE: To help it blend into the environment, the house was painted a colour that closely matches the earth, and the

sparse garden is focused on desert-friendly native plants. LEFT CENTRE: In the living room, fabrics are casually layered — draping a closet, tossed over the sofa for a relaxed look. Artwork, Patricia Larsen. BOTTOM LEFT: In the airy kitchen, an unvarnished antique armoire and simple, open shelves store dishes, bowls and spices.

IPAD-EXCLUSIVE SLIDESHOW See more photos of this house.

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ABOVE: Patricia fashions vignettes around her home from candles, pottery and her own artwork. Silver pitcher, crystal decanter, Heather Ross In House. RIGHT: Darkening the walls creates a poetic intimacy in the bedroom, as does the mosquito netting, which is a necessity in this part of the world. A vintage rug softens the feeling of rough concrete floors underfoot. Patricia put her own spin on the lantern by draping it in branches and jewelry. Vintage mercury-glass bead garland (on chandelier), Heather Ross in House. BOTTOM RIGHT: The simple but beautiful hand-sewn clothes in Patricia’s closet are designed and made by her and sold locally under the label Campesino, which means peasant. Patricia has plans to expand her line to include lighting and homewares later this year.

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