As a child, Nichol Naranjo, 44, dreamed of living in a house in Ridgecrest, USA, where her mother worked as a cleaner. After the death of the former owner, the woman bought the 3000 square meter mansion to live with her family.
Nichol Naranjo (Facebook)
Of all the houses the 44-year-old has seen in her life Nichol NaranjoShe fell in love with what her mother cleaned on Fridays: an old building with an inner courtyard and decorated with European antiques.
The house is located in the “living room” of Ridgecrest, in Albuquerque, between tree-lined avenues and suggestive landscapes. It was one of those in which Margaret Gaxiola she served as a cleaning lady. In 2020, Nichol, now a design influencer, fulfilled his dream of buying this home two years after the former owner’s death.
“I watched her daydream in the rooms of the house,” he told the New York Times Margaret Gaxiola, mother of this child, now adult and married with children. The woman had cleaned this apartment for 43 years. Gaxiola took her daughters, Nichol and Monica, with her on her travels from house to house because she had no one to confide in.
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While her mother dusted desks and shelves, she dreamed of one day moving into this magnificent 3,000 square foot mansion in one of the most affluent neighborhoods in the California city.
Years later the dream came true: when the then owner of the house, Pamela Key LindenDied in 2018 at the age of 73, she didn’t think for a moment: along with her husband Tom Duhonthe woman spent approx 427 thousand dollars for the purchase. The mansion he always wanted and admired for its spacious rooms, fireplace, courtyard view, colorful flowers and fountain is now his.
His mother had cleaned these rooms countless times. Dad had painted the walls. On several occasions she had helped take out the trash. “This house has my whole family’s fingerprints – said Ms. Naranjo – it’s all so exciting”.
For Nichol’s mother, visiting her daughter has a strange effect: “Sometimes I take something with me almost spontaneously and organize things. I have to hold myself back,” says Ms. Gaxiola.
Nichol now lives in a radically different reality from the rural town of Los Duranes in Albuberque, New Mexico, where he spent his childhood with his mother and older sister. His passion for interiors extends well beyond the house he recently bought: Nichol is now a design influencer with a blog dedicated to living spaces.