In a Former Mining Colony, a Haven for Artists

MINERAL DE POZOS, Mexico

Set on the high plains northwest of Mexico City, Mineral de Pozos is an unlikely place for a handful of foreign artists to settle. But over the past dozen or so years, that is precisely what has happened in Pozos, the local name for a former mining boomtown of 3,000, whose cobbled streets and crumbling stone buildings are tucked beneath a hillside of abandoned mineshafts and hacienda ruins.

Geoff Winningham, a photographer, and his wife, Janice Freeman, an artist, are among the 30 or so foreigners (mostly artists) who live here at least half the year, inspired by what Mr. Winningham calls “the eerily beautiful landscape,” with its groves of tall pipe-organ cactus and willowy pirul trees.

“From the first time I came to Pozos in 1979, it felt very isolated, very dreamy,” said Mr. Winningham, who also is a tenured professor at Rice University in Houston. Like most of the artists who have built here after summering for years in spots like San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato, he fled the increasing noise, pollution and tourism of those cities. “Coming here, I had the sense that I was totally cut off from any connection to my regular life,” he said. “That had a real allure for me.”

In the late 1990s, the couple bought three parcels of land, cash purchases because foreigners cannot hold mortgages in Mexico. They later sold the smallest piece to finance the construction of a starter home equipped as a darkroom and studio, a 2,200-square-foot building with sleeping quarters and a small bathroom. Now, the long, light-filled upstairs space is Ms. Freeman’s art studio. Downstairs, in addition to Mr. Winningham’s darkroom, there is a guest bedroom, a garage and a tack room for the couple’s horses, which are stabled on a friend’s property across the street.

A couple of years later, in 2002, the couple decided they could, in fact, commute to Houston and began work on a main house, which also has 2,200 square feet of space. They hired a young San Miguel architect to prepare the design, using local chipped caleche stone and adobe for construction.

Ms. Freeman said she and her husband had to make frequent visits to monitor progress, although that was a minor inconvenience compared with the trials of living in Pozos at the time. There was no regular running water or electricity — the couple had to help buy a new transformer for the town so Mr. Winningham’s darkroom equipment would not keep causing townwide blackouts.

And, like the rest of the local residents, they had to buy water from the pipa, or water truck, which still trundles into town every day or so.

“Actually, there was and still is a water supply from the municipality of San Luis de la Pa, but it’s notoriously unreliable,” Mr. Winningham said. “Sometimes we go weeks without the city water coming in, then all of a sudden it’ll come gushing through the pipes. That’s why we built a large underground cistern early on.” Now they can go two weeks or more without having to buy water.

The couple said they bought their land without knowing or caring whether values would increase — but, over the last eight years, they have.

According to Teresa Martinez, a real estate agent who operates the Hotel Casa Mexicana in town, the couple’s hacienda has at least quadrupled in value. The land originally sold for $6,800 and now probably would sell for $35,000, she said. Ms. Martinez bought her own 700-square-meter (5,400-square-foot) property, on the main town square, for around $8,000 in 1993. The same property “set up like it is,” she said, “would be $120,000 to $150,000.”

Some of the town’s more recent settlers are mindful of the appreciation and came to Pozos for the investment as well as the artistic inspiration.

In 2006, Larimer Richards, the sculptor and installation artist, and his partner, Ri Anderson, a photographer, bought two large adjoining lots totaling about an acre for $90,000 and converted a structure on the site into a permanent residence.

They spend part of their time in San Miguel, where they rent a small apartment, but Mr. Richards said that Pozos is “my nexus. It’s ‘the farm’ for me,” adding that when his two small daughters, both of whom are under 3, reach school age, the couple will reassess what they consider a “permanent home.”

For now, says Ms. Anderson, “we wanted a place for horses, and we just liked the vibe. This place frees you up creatively.”

As Mr. Winningham put it: “Pozos has been described as an arts colony, but I wouldn’t really call it that. I’d say it’s a place where several individuals — artists mostly — have bought and built, because they wanted to be someplace quiet and beautiful.”

Today, the couple’s compound reflects that description.

A courtyard filled with bougainvillea, cactus and a sprawling mesquite tree leads to the main house. Its airy interior showcases Ms. Freeman’s dreamlike paintings and multimedia collage as well as Mr. Winningham’s hand-printed photographs, the artwork of friends, regional folk art, books of all kinds and textiles from around the globe.

The great room and open kitchen, which both have 11-foot-ceilings and cabinetry handmade by Mr. Winningham, lead to a split-level area. Downstairs is a bedroom and bath for their son, Max; a library/study; and a half bath.

Upstairs is the master bedroom and bath, with a separate dressing area; all is illuminated by the sunlight that streams through French doors. They lead to an 1,800-square-foot terrace overlooking the cobbled streets below and the hillside ruins in the distance.

From that vista, as evening casts strange shadows from the pipe-organ cacti and distant courtyards begin to twinkle with lights, the town has an otherworldly quality. And it is that very quality that compelled Mr. Winningham and Ms. Freeman to create a place in Pozos that soon became home.

“This is our only home,” he said. “We did the craziest thing with this. As a couple, Janice and I built our ‘second home’ before having a first one. We never built or bought a ‘first home.’ We rent an apartment in Houston, but actually our primary residence is in Pozos.

“It was a funny kind of thing — in some ways impractical. This is not exactly where our work is or where our kids live or go to school. It was kind of illogical, but it made sense to us.”