To spot the Lamm House, look for the elegant, cream-colored stone building with an ornate entryway and a sweeping staircase leading up to grand wooden doors flanked by vintage iron railings-it's right in front of you.
Take a deep breath-can you smell the faint scent of old books and café treats floating on the breeze? Welcome to Casa Lamm, a true artistic time traveler in the heart of Roma. But don’t worry, this house isn’t haunted… unless you count the ghosts of poets, painters, and philosophers! Let’s step back in time to the turn of the 20th century, when this house was built in 1911-a dashing beacon of European-inspired elegance in what was once farmland owned by Pedro Lascuráin. If you close your eyes, you might hear horses clip-clopping past, the air buzzing with dreams of what the neighborhood could become.
Casa Lamm wasn’t always a hub for art, literature, and espressos. It was originally designed as a mansion for Lewis Lamm and his family-imagine grand dinner parties, whispers of secrets under chandeliers! But here’s the twist: Lamm never lived here. Instead, it became the Colegio Francés Jalisco, a bustling boys’ school, with laughter and lessons echoing through these very halls.
Then came the 1920s and the turbulent days of the Cristero War. Lewis Lamm wanted his property back, but when it was finally returned, it was a crumbling shell of its former self. After Lamm’s death in 1939, his widow sold the house to the García Collantes family-heroes in their own way, who would safeguard it for decades, refusing to see it meet the same demolition fate as so many mansions around them.
In the 1990s, just when it looked like time might win the battle, Casa Lamm was rescued and transformed, bit by bit, into a center for the arts. By 1994, after a massive restoration project that battled decades of neglect, the house opened its doors as a vibrant cultural center-like a phoenix rising from the rubble, only with more exhibitions and fewer feathers. The first event was a literary gathering, with big names like Octavio Paz in attendance-imagine standing where poets once debated the meaning of life over coffee and pastries!
Let’s peek into the future that the founders dreamed of: Claudia Gómez Haro, Germaine Gómez Haro, and Elena Lamm, along with others, ignited a movement that drew in galleries, artists, and creatives from all over the city. But there were plenty of hurdles! Public spaces struggled with crime and neglect, sometimes making even the bravest artist hesitate. Yet, here you stand, where so many kept the flame alive-something I’d call a real-life cliffhanger.
Now, if you look behind the main entrance, you’ll see the garden-lush, alive, and studded with remarkable bronze sculptures by the artist Jorge Marín. On your right, "Balanza de surfistas" shows two masked figures trying desperately to balance, as if starring in the world’s most dramatic game of seesaw-don’t worry, they haven’t tipped over yet! On the left, "Joven de Tecoh," a winged man braced to leap, guarding the house’s secrets. Just past the path, the "Violinista en roca" seems about to fill the leaves with notes-listen close, you might catch a ghostly melody among the birds.
Today, Casa Lamm offers everything from art history classes to hands-on workshops, a cozy bookstore filled with volumes in English and Spanish, and even a gourmet restaurant whose guests range from local artists to big-city dreamers. Downstairs, you’ll find treasures like the Pegaso bookstore and Las Flores del Mal restaurant, where you can feast on international cuisine with a Mexican twist-think huitlacoche and tamarind flavors worthy of a chef with a wild imagination.
Here, you also stand at the gateway to some of Mexico’s most prized art collections-including treasures from the legendary photographer Manuel Álvarez Bravo, safe in a climate-controlled vault built just to protect them. So, whether you’ve come to marvel at masterpieces or just enjoy a fancy coffee in this oasis of culture, Casa Lamm is living proof that beauty, like good stories, never really fades-it just waits for someone with a curious heart to step inside.
