Hotel San Fernando, a new boutique hotel from Austin-based hospitality group Bunkhouse, has opened in Mexico City's La Condesa neighborhood. The hotel is Bunkhouse's second property in Mexico but the first in the "CDMX" area.
The reimagined hotel has 19 rooms across five floors, a lobby bar and lounge as well as a rooftop terrace. Taking its name from the building itself, Edificio San Fernando, the property honors the patron saint of the Spanish Army Corps of Engineers. This ties in to the building’s architectural features, which draw from the anti-traditional elegance of the Art Deco era. Built in 1947 as an apartment building, original architectural details like casement windows, encaustic tile floors, wainscoting in the corridors and lobby and stained glass remain, while Bunkhouse and Mexico City-based Reurbano revitalized the design to reflect the rich color and history of Mexico, melding old world elegance with new world style.
Art Deco inspiration can be found in the entry doors with playful, curved metal panes that are original to the building with new glass that mimics the historic stained-glass windows. The updated lobby design has pieces from many local collaborators, including lobby lounge chairs from CDMX furniture showroom Originario, while the art program has work from local CDMX-based artists such as Pedro Friedeberg and Ricardo Guevara, to a piece from Texas-based contemporary artist Cruz Ortiz.
With nods to Bunkhouse group’s Texas heritage, the 19 guestrooms have clean-lined furnishings from local CDMX-based studio La Metropolitana and are accentuated with color blocked walls in coral, with ivory and gold peppered throughout. Touches reminiscent of home are found throughout the rooms, such as dishware and textiles that feel collected from the city’s various markets. Some rooms have a kitchenette. The updated design also includes pieces from many local collaborators, including customized bedside lighting and decorative lobby lamps from Oaxaca-based studio Oaxifornia, while Bunkhouse stained the built-in wood millwork by La Metropolitana in a warm tone and added a pop of teal and green to the exposed plywood edges, and the three new guestrooms on the roof level have new furniture designed by Bunkhouse and fabricated by CDMX-based B Collective Studio, with colorful tiles in pale blue, coral, and green to create geometric patterns ranging from triangles to pinwheels. Live plants add to the apartament feeling in all the rooms, and a custom linen program from Kassatex, alongside signature Bunkhouse custom robes, reference the textile heritage of the city.