MERIDA, YUCATAN
Curious Cats,
Some places don’t just host milestones—they become part of your lineage. This issue is one of those for me. Mérida is where I was married this past December, and it’s a place I already know will hold our future: quiet returns with my husband, long weekends with family, reunions with friends who feel more like chosen kin.
When we began searching for a wedding destination, we knew it had to be Mexico—a country that has shaped my work, my curiosity, and my sense of home. I wanted to invite our people not just into a celebration, but into our world. Mexico was the only answer.
Of all its extraordinary corners, Mérida captured us with its gentle grandeur: colonial façades softened by time, courtyards breathing with bougainvillea and birdsong, cenotes hidden beneath limestone and lore. It also stirred something deeply familiar. In its layered cultures, reverent relationship to food, and creative pulse, Mérida reminded me of New Orleans, where I attended college—a place shaped by history, art, and the beauty of cultures colliding.
For our wedding, I wanted to design an adventure, one that unfolded across the weekend and mirrored how I travel: layered, meandering, and rich with contrast. From city bars marked in time to jungle estates, from candlelit dinners to salt-kissed swims, Mérida offered a rhythm that felt both grounding and expansive. While many travelers know Tulum or Cancún, the greater Yucatán remains a trove of beauty—often overlooked, always rewarding.
So consider this issue my love letter to Mérida. A place of color and calm, history and surprise. I hope that if you go—whether for a wedding, a week, or a whisper of an idea—you’ll find what I did: a city that stays with you long after you’ve left.
Onwards & upwards,
Jessica
OUR GUIDE TO MERIDA
While the wedding weekend carried us through many moments together, our hope was that each guest would also discover their Mérida. A city is never experienced the same way twice, and rather than overprogram every hour, we wanted to leave room for wandering, curiosity, and personal rhythm. This guide was created as a companion—an invitation to explore beyond the festivities and find what resonates.
Often called La Ciudad Blanca, Mérida sits at the cultural heart of the Yucatán Peninsula, layered with histories that stretch far beyond its elegant colonial façades. Long before Spanish arrival, this region was a thriving center of Maya civilization, built atop ancient cities, cenotes, and sacred geometry that still quietly shape the land today.
Founded in 1542 on the ruins of the Maya city of T’Hó, Mérida later flourished during the henequen boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when “green gold” transformed the city into one of the wealthiest in Mexico. Grand mansions rose along Paseo de Montejo, blending European influence with regional craftsmanship—an architectural legacy that continues to define the city’s stately elegance.
Yet so much of Mérida exists behind doors. Courtyards hidden beyond modest façades. Homes that open inward rather than out. Lives layered with history, ritual, and imagination. It is a city that doesn’t reveal itself all at once. Instead, it invites you to linger, to wonder, and to imagine what might exist just beyond the threshold. The reward comes to those who slow down, who knock, who step inside.
Today, Mérida feels both timeless and alive—a place where Maya traditions, Spanish heritage, and contemporary creativity coexist. This is expressed through cuisine rooted in ancient techniques, a quietly vibrant arts scene, and a pace of life that feels refreshingly human. There is an intimacy here, a calm confidence, that rewards those willing to look closer.
This guide is our love letter to that spirit—meant to help you navigate the city, yes, but more importantly, to give you the freedom to discover Mérida in your own way.
Checking In x Chable
Just under an hour from Mérida, Chablé Yucatán is one of those rare places that immediately quiets you. Set within the restored grounds of an 18th-century henequen hacienda, the property is deeply rooted in the region’s agricultural and cultural history—once a working estate, now thoughtfully reimagined as a sanctuary for wellness, gastronomy, and slow living. Rather than erasing the past, Chablé builds upon it, allowing history, landscape, and design to coexist in deliberate harmony.
There are no traditional hotel rooms here—only standalone villas, each tucked discreetly into the jungle and equipped with a private pool. It’s the kind of setup that makes leaving your villa feel optional: mornings begin with birdsong and filtered light, afternoons drift between pool, hammock, and shaded terrace. Despite the scale of the estate, the atmosphere feels intimate, almost secluded. Bikes are provided in every villa, encouraging unhurried exploration of the grounds—past ancient stone walls, leafy paths, and quiet corners that feel entirely your own.
At the heart of the property, Chablé’s signature restaurant celebrates Yucatecan cuisine through a refined, contemporary lens—rooted in local ingredients, traditional techniques, and careful sourcing. Meals unfold slowly, often lingering longer than planned, helped along by one of the most impressive tequila collections in the region. Yet nothing feels formal or stiff. Chablé has a way of encouraging guests to settle in, to claim a favorite chair by the fire, to sway gently on one of the sculptural swings scattered throughout the property, and to treat the space as a temporary home rather than a hotel stay.
Wellness is woven into every aspect of the experience, but the spa is truly exceptional. Built around a cenote and guided by Mayan traditions, it offers rituals that feel both grounding and transportive—couples massages suspended above water, ancient cleansing ceremonies at sacred points on the land, and yoga sessions that seem to slow time. The treatments are not only thoughtful but deeply effective; it’s the kind of place where you feel the benefits long after you’ve left.
Chablé is rare in that it invites both rest and exploration with equal ease. It works just as beautifully for a romantic escape as it does for a multigenerational stay—children included—without ever feeling busy or diluted. It’s a property I return to often, and one that will always hold a permanent place in my Yucatán lineup.
Checking In x Club de Patos
Even within a compressed six-month wedding planning timeline, we made space for scouting trips—moments to slow down, recalibrate, and reconnect with places that felt essential. One destination we returned to again and again was Club de Patos, a nine-room boutique hotel tucked directly onto the shoreline of Sisal.
Club de Patos feels less like a hotel and more like a private coastal clubhouse—intimate, understated, and deeply attuned to its surroundings. Privacy is paramount here, but never at the expense of warmth or ease. Days unfold entirely on your own terms: breakfast barefoot by the sea, a long lunch wherever the light feels right, books by the pool, dinner staged deliberately—on the sand, under the stars, or tucked into a quiet corner of the property.
What sets it apart is its proximity to nature and the way the hotel encourages gentle immersion rather than spectacle. Flamingo watching at golden hour, kayaking through nearby mangroves, unhurried swims in bath-warm waters where the sea barely breaks—each experience feels quietly curated, never forced. The beach itself is a rare gem: calm, shallow, and expansive, with soft waves that feel like you are taking a bath in the ocean itself.
Surrounded by protected mangroves and open sky, Club de Patos offers a rare kind of tranquility—the kind that lets you fully disengage from structure and expectation. It is a place to do very little, very well.
CHECKING IN X Catherwood
As someone who has always loved hotels, it surprised me how easily I was swayed in another direction. Choosing a private estate for our wedding wasn’t an obvious choice for me—hotels are where I feel most at home—but when my dear friend Juan Carlos introduced us to Catherwood, everything shifted.
Catherwood is a Mexico City–based family who fell in love with the quiet wonder of the Yucatán and slowly, thoughtfully built a portfolio of properties across the region. You can feel that intimacy in the way they operate. These are not “rental homes” in the conventional sense—they are places that feel lived in, respected, and deeply tied to their surroundings. Each property has its own soul, whether it’s a hacienda layered with history or a modern estate oriented around light, water, and land. And most importantly, all of these blend nature, art, and design in one. True works of art.
Hacienda Cuzumal, where we ultimately hosted our wedding, felt like an extension of that philosophy. There was a calm to it, an elegance without pretense, and a sense that the property had been waiting patiently to hold something meaningful. Hosting our wedding there felt natural rather than staged—and I already know it’s a place I want to return to with Mitch, with our families, and one day with our future family.
What struck me most about Catherwood was how easy everything felt. I’m often hesitant to recommend private homes because service can be inconsistent, but here, that concern simply disappeared. The teams on the ground were thoughtful, warm, and incredibly capable. Nothing felt forced or overproduced—just quietly well run. Each home is beautifully designed, but never at the expense of comfort or flow, and no two properties feel the same.
While it was hard for me to turn away from hotels, Catherwood made the experience feel deeply personal and surprisingly seamless. It’s the kind of place—and company—that stays with you. For anyone drawn to meaningful spaces, privacy, and a strong sense of place, it’s something truly special.
HONORABLE ACCOLADES
HACIENDA SUBIN
Tucked just outside Mérida, Hacienda Subín is a masterclass in lived-in design and cultural reverence. Home to designer Laura Kirar and writer Richard Frazier, the restored estate has been widely celebrated in publications such as Architectural Digest and Elle Decor for its fearless approach to color, texture, and storytelling. Each room unfolds with its own maximalist identity—layered textiles, hand-painted walls, sculptural antiques, and contemporary art sit effortlessly alongside traditional Yucatecan craftsmanship. Rather than feeling curated for show, the house feels deeply personal and intellectually alive, a place where design is both expressive and functional. Hacienda Subín is not just a beautiful property; it’s an immersive study in how historic architecture, regional artistry, and modern sensibility can coexist—making it one of the most compelling private residences in Yucatán today.
PLANTEL MATILDE
Plantel Matilde is less a building and more an idea made tangible—an inhabitable sculpture rising out of the Yucatán jungle that blurs the line between architecture, art, and sanctuary. Conceived by celebrated Mexican sculptor Javier Marín and brought to life with architect Arcadio Marín, the monolithic concrete structure functions as both the artist’s studio and a contemplative space for visiting creators, anchored by reflective pools, immense colonnades, and minimalist geometry that feels both timeless and otherworldly. The project, part of the Javier Marín Foundation, is rooted in Marín’s lifelong exploration of the human form and his commitment to nurturing emerging talent, offering resident artists a place to live, create, and engage with the elemental forces of light, shadow, water, and silence. Plantel Matilde’s austere presence amid dense nature—where monastic scale meets subtle craftsmanship—makes it one of the most singular artistic environments in the region and a profound reminder of how art can shape not only spaces, but states of mind.
READY TO PLAN YOUR ESCAPE?
Your Yucatán days are calling.
If this sounds like the Mérida you’ve been craving—slow mornings with pan dulce, honey-colored streets, cenote swims, and haciendas made for lingering—reach out, and let’s craft a journey that’s entirely yours.
Let us shape a trip with soul, shade, and a little heat-haze magic.
