CASA CERRILLO

Inside José Léon Cerrillo’s Mexico City Townhouse

In what architect Max von Werz calls the home’s “bel étage,” the first space one enters is Cerrillo’s dining room, anchored by a 1960s Florence Knoll table he now uses mostly as a desk. It’s paired with two Marcel Breuer Cesca chairs, a staged MR Chair in rattan by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (originally designed for the 1927 Weissenhof Estate exhibition in Stuttgart), and a pair of “slime green” wooden Jota L. chairs by his friend Mike Díaz, crafted in a Roman chariot style from reclaimed 19th–20th century antiques. Classic Dieter Rams shelves line the walls, filled with Cerrillo’s collection of books, zines, and other joterías, like a phallic ceramic hot dog by Cajsa von Zeipel. An orange relief by London-based artist Lewis Teague Wright (RIDER: Lost Lover’s Locks, 2020) adds a bright counterpoint. Elsewhere in the house, an oil painting of a muscular youth by former owner José García Ocejo holds pride of place. Ocejo also passed down one of the home’s secrets: during a visit to Mexico City, a young Jacqueline Bouvier — later Kennedy Onassis — is said to have stayed here. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, MR Chair Rattan (1927). Marcel Breuer, Cesca chairs (1928).

When artist José León Cerrillo first set foot in the townhouse on a quiet street in Mexico City’s Roma Norte, after looking for a house for eight years, he knew this was it. The sprawling early-20th-century casona stretches deep into its lot, organized around four back-to-back bays and punctured by a dramatic triple-height void and indoor patio. It once belonged to a prominent family into which Hollywood star Dolores del Río married, before changing hands, five decades later, to painter José García Ocejo, a Veracruz-born artist who epitomized Roma Norte’s bohemian heyday. Cerrillo, charmed by the property’s layered lineage — and by the idea of buying a home from a fellow artist, whom he met shortly before Ocejo’s death in 2019 — won the bid. The house Cerrillo inherited was a labyrinth of balustrades, wood paneling, carpets, and baroque flourishes Ocejo had amassed over the years, a fantasia in wrought iron and scrolls. To transform it, Cerrillo teamed up with Max von Werz, the German-Mexican architect known for his surgical heritage adaptations. Together they worked with the structure, reopening skylights, passages, and reconfiguring the interiors around a series of patios. The result is bright and cinematic: suites of sitting areas, lounges, staircases, and corridors flowing into one another without partitions, a sequence that nods to Modernist precedents from Pierre Chareau’s Maison de Verre to Lina Bo Bardi’s Casa de Vidro. A few traces of Ocejo remain — cantera keystones carved into roses, for instance — but the house now reads as an encyclopedic collage of Cerrillo’s own obsessions, an artist’s sanctuary filled with hundreds of plants, ceramics, textiles, and joterías, a Mexican word Cerrillo uses to playfully describe his collection of objects and ephemera. Woven into the space and placed around the house for this photo shoot are genuine design classics — and nobody does the classics like Knoll, the American powerhouse founded in 1938 by Florence Knoll, whose influence still reverberates through interiors like a perfect bass line. For PIN–UP, artist Asger Carlsen photographed a few choice Knoll pieces in Cerrillo’s 5,700-square-foot residence, capturing Modernist marvels by Bertoia, Mies van der Rohe, Platner, Schultz, Saarinen, and Knoll herself. A treasure hunt from bottom to top.

Built in 1913, the Roma Norte townhouse flaunts a French-inspired façade restored by architect Max von Werz. Its garlands and swirly ironwork suggest bourgeois gentility, though Cerrillo’s interiors tell another story.

Cerrillo and Max von Werz transformed the once fenced-off rooftop into a lush city oasis, complete with a pergola, outdoor shower, and oversized planters for Cerrillo’s green thumb. To provide shade and privacy, they added a lattice steel pavilion and small tezontle-clad structures, including a powder room. Frida Escobedo’s Chair 01 (2015), a rare copper prototype from her early furniture experiments, is a focal point of the terrace. Next to it stands Eero Saarinen’s side table with a black granite top. Eero Saarinen, Saarinen side table, (1958).

Platner, Platner coffee table (1966). The main bedroom is anchored by a Cerrillo-designed cedar bed with a tall headboard that doubles as a linen closet and divider. On the bedside table, a glowing MD Lamp by Eduardo Rivas’s ERM Studio perches like a spider mid-pounce — a playful counterpoint to the room’s solidity. In the corner, a Warren Platner side table adds a touch of Modernist glamour, winning the approval of Cerrillo’s cat Anibal. Warren Platner, Platner side table (1966).

For the kitchen, Cerrillo drew inspiration from Lina Bo Bardi’s Casa de Vidro in São Paulo, adapting its generous layout to his own home. Custom yellow Talavera tiles from Dolores Hidalgo warm the atrium-facing space and recall the glow of his previous kitchen. In the breakfast nook, a classic Eames table pairs with a placed MR Chair in rattan by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, while Marcel Breuer’s Cesca barstools line the counter. As elsewhere in the house, every object carries a story: a square egg basket from his mother’s home rests on a rare Saltillo wool sarape, and a green glass pitcher from Puebla, filled with hibiscus water, is draped in an heirloom tablecloth. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, MR Chair Rattan

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, MR Chair Rattan (1927). Marcel Breuer, Cesca Barstools (1928).

Trompe l’oeil, but not quite. In the living room, Cerrillo suspended a vintage floral-lined mirror (found in a CDMX flea market) from his chain-link Room Divider (Male Fantasies) (2021). It reflects the fireplace opposite, which sits beside Butaque (Male Fantasies) (2021), a functional artwork reimagining the iconic low, wide-seated lounge form from colonial Mexico, which merges Spanish, Indigenous, and African traditions. The piece is paired with a classic Saarinen side table in black marble. Eero Saarinen, Saarinen side table, (1958).

Through the atrium’s sliding glass doors lies the third-floor back terrace, which came about accidentally during Mexico City’s infamous 1985 earthquake, which destroyed the rooms that once stood there. Now an intimate sundeck for Cerrillo’s long, narrow bathroom, it features a classic 1966 sun lounger surrounded by flowerpots whose plants spill back into the atrium. Bottom left corner: a white porcelain Royal Copenhagen poodle from Cerrillo’s collection. Richard Schultz, 1966 Adjustable Chaise (1966).

Marking the start of a sequence of terraces, the kitchen opens onto a small patio — formerly the dining room — centered on an oval terrazzo fountain, a nod to Luis Barragán’s early houses. The renovation infused the home with layered Mexican craft: green-flecked terrazzo from a fourth-generation workshop, steelwork from Chalco, and glass mosaics from a historic Cuernavaca factory once favored by Mario Pani, Diego Rivera, and other influential Mexican architects and artists. At the center of it all: Harry Bertoia’s iconic Diamond Chair. In the upper left corner: a cactus-spiked dumbbell by designer Victor Barragán, dedicated to Cerrillo’s cats. Harry Bertoia, Diamond Chair (1952).

At the heart of the house, the central courtyard was reimagined as a glass-domed atrium, framing a lounge that links the dining room and kitchen while overlooking a fern garden and obsidian mosaic planter with cascading monsteras. Dragonflies buzz beneath the skylight, preserving the sensation of being outdoors. Furnishings include a Dieter Rams 620 sofa, a rare Clara Porset string bench, a green Neo-Mayan chest by Mike Díaz, and a staged Platner coffee table layered with Cerrillo’s trademark curiosities: glass and silver spheres from Guadalajara — favorites of Luis Barragán — and five bronze lemons, an artist’s proof of a sculpture from his recent exhibition, Vanitas at Andréhn-Schiptjenko in Paris. Warren Platner, Platner coffee table (1966).

In the 380-square-foot main living room, architect Max von Werz preserved the home’s grand proportions with three tall windows, white-painted beams, and a working fireplace. Moss-green French sofas, vintage Clara Porset chairs, and a placed Womb Chair by Eero Saarinen are joined by the MD side table from ERM Studio, Eduardo Rivas’s Mexico City studio (and Cerrillo’s partner). Part of ERM’s Materia Digital collection, the table translates natural forms — orchids, bones, and curves shaped by evolution — into aluminum via parametric modeling. The silver painting above the fireplace is by Josef Strau, while a 19th-century Turkish rug grounds the space. Nearby, an Art Deco porcelain greyhound stands guard, and the chain-link room divider is by the house’s owner, artist Cerrillo, from his 2021 Male Fantasies series. Eero Saarinen, Womb Chair (1948).