In the lands of the coffee, from the book, Searching for treasures
Monument to the Revolution, Mexico City Historical Center, Mexico
“How can this be? This is beautiful, you are undeniably a great master, Jean Marie, congratulations! Both studies are extraordinarily impressive. You see, I spend time here every day, at this precise moment you have allowed me to discover details I had never considered, he commented, rediscovering that little nook and a voice filled with emotion.”
“Thank you” was Jean Marie simple answer, “they are only some insignificant sketches, his smile amplifying through the lens of the glasses he wore.
“I really like this hotel,” he added, the facade and its interiors are genuinely magnificent,” he remarked while showing the owner the first one of that day’s creations.
“That’s very kind of you. Let me tell you that this building is relatively modern, for it was reconstructed in 1999. That year, a devastating earthquake destroyed a considerable part of the nearby city, Armenia, and it also caused large-scale damages here at Marsella. Due to the extensive ravages to the building, we were forced to repair and renovate it. So, we decided to take advantage of the fact, carefully restoring the frontispiece to its original architectonic concepts of a rural, old-style manor house.”
“Anyways, they say that the bad comes with the good tucked into it somewhere, so while we are it, we planned that it was going to be a hotel, so we contemplated this as we designed the interior spaces and their distribution. So we merged both propositions into the project: a country manor house that could also function as a comfortable hotel and there you have it, what do you think? The thing is that this building has its history. At a certain time, it was even the town’s City Hall, of course, that happened many years ago!” Victor Hugo’s voice let out a certain proud tone as he explained this to the artist, who was placidly listening with interest to these historical facts about the town and the hotel proper.