Callejón or Privada Mr. Crowe is distinguished as the Chapala area’s one and only street named after a foreign settler.
Septimus Crowe was born June 29, 1842, in Kåfjord, Norway, the seventh male offspring of British diplomat John Rice Crowe and his second wife Malene Marie Waad. At the time of his father’s death in 1877, he was posted as Britain Vice Consul in the capital city Kristiania (Oslo). He married Georgina Bidder, descendent of a wealthy English family with whom he bore one son.
It is presumed that Crowe put down roots in Chapala around 1883, drawn by the healing powers of the natural thermal waters that soothed his rheumatic ailments. He made his home in a wooden chalet erected on the land that would later house the splendid Villa Montecarlo owned by Aurelio Gonzalez Hermosillo, the same site where the Hotel Montecarlo stands today. He also credited with building several of Chapala’s stately waterfront vacation mansions.
A description of Crowe uncovered by historian-author Tony Burton depicts him as “a peculiar Englishmen … dressed in a Spanish costume: a large Mexican hat trimmed in gold braid, a short white coat; tight trousers and a long red sash, and white gloves.”
He died in Mexico City on July 31, 1903, five years prior to the arrival of another influential foreigner, Paul Christian Schjetnan, Norwegian mastermind of the Chapala railway line. Any connection between the two men is uncertain. And which of them inspired the naming of Cristiania Park and its adjacent avenue will likely remain an unsolved mystery.