Juan de Mayoralgo: I wish we could travel more consciously and responsibly
Bed & Breakfast, myhomeinporto, se nachází v domě z 30. let a první hosty přivítal v říjnu 2016. Majitel Juan vytvořil pro své hosty příjemné prostředí připomínající domov. Juan má cit pro detail a kombinaci nových prvků s těmi původními.
After more than a year living with the pandemic, maybe you are finally also thinking where to go? Maybe you are striving for a change of environment or scenery, but somehow none of the presented choices evokes any joy inside.
I’ve felt very much like this for some time. Then I remembered that place I follow on instagram and I really wanted to visit. A place that looks like the home I wished I lived in, where history meets design in such natural way. A place that also presented itself so simply, yet every detail was probably carefully thought through. The place that I am talking about is called myhomeinporto, run by Juan de Mayoralgo.
I've never been to Portugal, but it is very much so on my list of places to visit. To my surprise I discovered that even though the Instagram account is still alive, myhomeinporto is now closed.
“Well, I just simply couldn’t stand the situation anymore: with just a few guests since March 2020 and no perspectives (at all!) for the months (or even years…) to come I decided to definitely close myhomeinporto in December 2020,” shared Juan, now the former owner of myhomeinporto.
Juan is half Spanish and half French, lives in Portugal and enjoyed a career in interior design for many years. All of these things have had a big impact on the way he approached his bed and breakfast in Porto.
“I didn’t want an “over designed” space for my guest house. I wanted it to be, first of all, my home so I used the furniture, paintings and objects I had and some family pieces from Spain and France and added items I bought in Portugal (Porto and Lisbon), specifically for the house. I mixed all of these things together in my personal style,” explains Juan and modestly adds: “I have to say the house is so beautiful that it was easy to make it work!”
“I didn’t want an “over designed” space for my guest house. I wanted it to be, first of all, my home.”
Juan’s intention from the beginning was for guests to feel like they were staying in someone’s home, not in a hotel. Even though I’ve never visited and probably will never will visit his place, it breathes the warmth and coziness of home.
That brings me to the thought that traveling is not about the distance, how exotic the final destination is or even how many good looking pictures we managed to take there. It’s about being able to truly enjoy the place and the moment. That’s why Juan used sit with his guests, providing them with his tips: “I would say all my tips and recommendations were bespoke,” says Juan, proudly.
“I wish we could travel more consciously and responsibly, which probably means more selectively.
In my opinion, people were traveling too much and this is something, not only from an environmental point of view but mostly, not sustainable.”
It brings a certain amount of sadness that a place like myhomeinporto has closed its doors to no fault of its own. It was a unique project full of gentleness and appreciation for an historic home with interesting pieces of furniture and so may other details that created a home to that you could book.
While open it made lots of guests very happy and Juan is already searching for his next project. It will be worth your time to follow him @juandemayoralgo as he finds that next “home”.