“I was a wild child” Victoria Ryan told me one stormy Patzcuaro summer afternoon. “I was certified by the State of California as incorrigible.”
Hotelier, painter, sculptor, self-declared hippie and naturalized Mexican, Ryan uses a word – incorrigible – that means the same thing in two languages to describe herself. Fittingly, the owner and operator of the Casa Encantada in Patzcuaro has named her hotel with a word that means two things in Spanish: enchanted and haunted. And as she later explained to me, the name turns out to be more than just word play.
Born in Australia and raised on Three Rivers Ranch in New Mexico, Ryan moved with her mother to California after her parents divorced. She later lived in New York City, where she went to the Brooklyn Museum Art School.
In her wild child days, Ryan would often run away from home. At 16, she gave birth to her first daughter and gave her up for adoption. As a young woman in New York, she lived a “bohemian lifestyle,” studying art, marrying a writer, having her second child and in 1972 adopting her son, nephew Thomas Ryan V, after his mother died.
Her love affair with the picturesque Purepechan city of Patzcuaro began in 1992.
According to Ryan, Patzcuaro was much like Santa Fe in the 1930s and 40s, a place she describes as “alive and vibrant, where people felt they could get away from commercialism and live a purer life.”
Writers and artists flocked to Santa Fe searching for this purity and Patzcuaro has provided a similar environment to Ryan and other artists.
One of these was Judith Deim, who arrived in Central Mexico as a part of a painting expedition funded by writer John Steinbeck. Ryan befriended Deim, an artist she describes as a “true gypsy, horse trader, wheeler dealer.” On one occasion, Ryan recalls, Deim agreed to sell Ryan a painting but promptly asked her to leave it to be “cleaned up.” Ryan never ended up with that particular painting as it turned out Deim had also promised it to her daughter. “I hung up on her when she told me it was for her daughter,” Ryan remembers. The two made amends and Ryan recalls Deim with affection and respect.
An accomplished painter and sculptor herself, Ryan has filled the Casa Encantada with her own work and that of other notable artists.
Built in 1784, Casa Encantada is a colonial mansion that Ryan has painstakingly remodeled into a comfortable B&B boasting some of the only heated rooms in Patzcuaro. At 7,020 feet, this quaint town in the heart of Mexico can get very chilly. With gas fireplaces in every room, goose down comforters, heated king-size mattresses and fluffy flannel sheets, La Casa Encantada delivers on its name: it will wrap you up in warmth and keep you enchanted.
But Ryan’s home was not always so enchanted. There was a time when her home had some unwanted guests. Ryan had initially intended her Patzcuaro home to be an artist’s retreat. As she set about remodeling and redecorating, she found herself painting and repainting a particular room.
“I just couldn’t get the color I wanted,” she explains. “And that was when my friend suggested I seek the help of a curandera.” A traditional medicine practitioner or healer, curanderas are often referred to as brujas – witches, psychics or mediums. Their services are retained so they can, through different rituals, clean out spaces (hacer limpias) and remove bad spirits or energies from people. In the case of Ryan’s home, the curandera found several spirits. La Casa Encantada turned out to be somewhat haunted.
“She said there was a starving man, a lonely child, a cook.” Ryan smiles as she recalls the limpia. All these spirits were then set free with by the curandera’s rituals. Then, after liberating the home of these spirits, the curandera told Ryan something else about her house. She told her that her house, La Casa Encantada, was her destiny. The wild child, it seemed, had finally come home.
Ryan has not only become an expert on Patzcuaro, she has become a Patzcuarense herself. Her father, Thomas F . Ryan III, was born in Chihuahua. Thanks to the constitutional reform in 1998, children of Mexicans born outside of the country were granted the right to citizenship. And fortunately for her, being the child of a natural born Mexican allowed her to make Patzcuaro her permanent home.
The secluded nature of the city was a major part of its attraction for Ryan. When she first arrived she didn’t have a phone. “You’d be on the waiting list for years and when I finally got one I wasn’t sure if I even wanted it. I ended up disconnecting it and locking it in a closet. That way if I wanted to use it, it would be when I wanted to communicate with someone, not the other way around.”
La Casa Encantada, as it turns out, is suitably named since the town in which it is located is without a doubt enchanting.
Its colonial architecture, shuttered windows, indoor patios, authentic Mexican kitchen, complete with Patamban pottery, set the stage for a real Mexican experience. Ryan’s home feels and smells totally Mexican. Patzcuaro – one of Mexico’s foremost “Pueblos Mágicos” (Magical Towns) – has a particular scent and Ryan enjoys talking about it.
“There are months’ worth of things to do and see in Patzcuaro,” she enthuses. “The ex-Colegio is doing a better job than ever at marketing and using all the rooms to showcase art, something they had never done before … and there is art and artisans, history and archeology. Also, people would be surprised to know how lush Patzcuaro is.”
Yet, Ryan delivers a warning to expats searching for a Mexican paradise. “To live in Patzcuaro you need to be able to entertain yourself. If someone needs external stimulation you’re not going to find it here.”
Hotel Casa Encantada is one of the top 25 hotels for service, number one for hotels in Patzcuaro and Traveler’s Choice for 2013 on Trip Advisor.com. It is a perfect destination for anyone who wants to get to know what Mexico is really like. It is in the state of Michoacan –the heart of the country – and has been thriving for centuries.
For more information, visit www.hotelcasaencantada.com.