I am from Mexico City and I've lived in Saudi Arabia, Boston, and Washington, D.C. I've traveled and collected widely in the Middle East, Europe, the United States, and of course, in Mexico and other Latin American countries. When I was a little girl my father bought the family an unfinished house that had been designed as the personal home of a famous architect. The architect's wife decided she did not like the neighborhood, and that's how we came to get the house. The house was made of stone, and it integrated architectural fragments from Aztec and Spanish colonial ruins. My mother had studied interior design in Mexico City. Though I was only nine years old, she allowed me to design the completion of my own bedroom! My mother's father, José de Jesús Rangel Covarrubias, had owned cattle ranches and leather tanneries in Jalisco: this may be one reason I'm so in love with leather furniture. Today I buy artisanal textiles from indigenous women who make them in Tenango de Doria, Oaxaca, and Chiapas. I manage a team of artisans and curate my collection in the heartland of the United States in Saint Louis, Missouri.

-- Lucía Landa