On a warm August afternoon in Mexico City’s Condesa neighborhood, I met Carlos Couturier at Condesa DF, the boutique hotel that helped put the charming area back on the map as a stylish enclave favored by art-conscious visitors to Mexico’s capital. Along with brothers Moisés, Jaime, and Rafael Micha, Couturier is a founder of Grupo Habita, Mexico’s design-forward hotel empire; Condesa DF was its second hotel in the capital. Located in a converted triangular building from 1928, it looks as fresh today as it did when it opened in 2005.
Since launching its first property 25 years ago, Grupo Habita has both shaped the evolution of design hotels and responded to global hospitality trends. Today, Habita operates 17 hotels across Mexico, as well as the Robey in Chicago. (Habita also ran the Americano in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood from 2011 to 2018, when it handed over management to other parties.) Five new properties are in the works, one of which is the fourth Habita location in Mexico City.
Grupo Habita’s efforts have contributed to Mexico City’s rise as the go-to destination for a specific profile of traveler—someone who is cultured, proactive, and more interested in discovering the latest speakeasy or under-the-radar artist than trekking to Teotihuacán. What unites Habita’s clients is their intelligence, Couterier told me during our conversation.
“We try to do a hotel every year,” he continued. “It takes lots of energy doing something differently each time—working with different architects, interior designers, chefs, and so on. My job is to pare things down and make them sharp.”
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