A home that heals in Guadalajara

Erick Millán’s apartment in Guadalajara shows how color can heal. The designer moved there from Los Angeles after a breakup, landing in an empty office-turned-flat with white walls, no stove, and a single microwave on a bare table. Over the next year, he turned heartbreak into pigment.

The apartment that rebuilt a life

The space bursts with energy: ceiling-high swaths of magenta, emerald, and cobalt meet hand-painted tiles that clash like a Talavera market at noon. A Fornasetti face winks from the kitchen table next to a piñata shaped like a donkey. In the living room, a shrine to Frida Kahlo shares wall space with a vintage Perrier poster and a pair of wooden clogs. Every doorway is crowned with a hollow Chiapas animal mask, watching over the chaos.

Millán grew up in Mazatlán and spent 15 years in LA working as an architect and creative director. He says the project began as a way to fill time. “I came here to reconnect with my culture through arts and crafts, ceramics. Mexico is color,” he explains. What started as a distraction became a form of self-prescribed healing. He commissioned local artisans to make tiles, textiles, and furniture, then layered them with IKEA finds and his own designs. The result is a space that feels both personal and performative, like a stage set for a life still unfolding.

From glossy LA to Guadalajara’s backstreets

The move was risky. Millán had built a comfortable life in Los Angeles—an electric car, a steady job designing dog products, a degree in LA. Returning to Mexico felt like a step backward to some. “Often in Mexican culture, we go to the United States to live the typical American dream,” he notes. “For me, at that time, it felt contradictory to go back.” But the relationship that drew him to Guadalajara ended, leaving him in a city where he knew almost no one.

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His first months were spent in the empty apartment, a blank canvas that mirrored his uncertainty. Then, slowly, he began to fill it. He had tiles made in geometric patterns inspired by Pedro Friedeberg’s surrealist drawings. He hung crocheted flowers and vintage posters. A chef joins Erick during the week, turning the space into a plant-based test kitchen. The apartment became a laboratory for his tastes, unfiltered by compromise.

Millán calls the process a return to his inner child. “When you share a space with someone else, you consider their likes and dislikes,” he says. “But the more I added to my apartment, the question shifted: how can I have fun and create a space just for me?” The answer was to treat the flat like a coloring book, where every stroke was a small act of reclaiming his identity.

The effect is less a traditional home than a three-dimensional mood board. A hand-painted monkey by Seletti swings from the banister. A shrine to the Virgin Mary sits beside a stack of art books. The colors don’t just decorate the walls—they seem to push against them, as if trying to escape. While some might find it overwhelming, for Millán, it’s a form of spiritual refueling. “I find being surrounded by color and plants truly magical,” he says. “Mother Nature allows me to recharge.”

The breakup that led him here also led to growth. The apartment, once a symbol of loss, now demonstrates what can emerge afterward. Millán doesn’t see it as a grand statement. To him, it’s simpler: a place where he can be alone without feeling lonely, where every object and shade reminds him he’s still here—and still creating.

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The kitchen, once a sterile white box, now hums with life. A chef prepares plant-based meals there during the week, and the table is always set for one more, even if it’s just Millán and his thoughts. He admits the piñatas are purely for joy. “Why not?” he says. “The little donkeys are cute.”

His approach to design extends beyond the apartment. In a Paris apartment once owned by Emanuel Ungaro, a similar philosophy preserves the designer’s legacy through bold choices and personal touches.

Millán’s work also aligns with efforts to highlight overlooked art forms. A new center in London celebrates illustration, much like his apartment celebrates Mexican craftsmanship through lively, eclectic pieces.