Casa Ana Maria

Casa Ana Maria is an assisted living home in west Ajijic, Lake Chapala. Inside the gate sits a beautiful home adapted for senior living, with a main house and a second building set around gardens, and the common areas open straight out onto the grounds and a view to a Mexican hacienda.

Between the two buildings is a large, sunny garden with a small pool toward the back. The dining room does double duty as a screening room, with a projector for movie afternoons, and small tables are set out across the patios and gardens for coffee or a meal outside.

The rooms are genuinely large, the kind of space you get when a hacienda is reimagined for senior living rather than built from scratch. The finishes are lovely throughout, from the beautifully tiled bathrooms in some rooms to the generous closets in every one, and here and there a chandelier or a pair of wall lights in place of a single overhead bulb, which lends those rooms a cozy, gently vintage warmth.

One building holds the more modern, roomier quarters that face the pool, while the other keeps things smaller and more private. Each building has its own elevator, so every floor is reachable, and the garage has space for residents who drive and want to keep a car on site.

Casa Ana Maria is located in West Ajijic, one block from the lake and about three blocks from a cluster of restaurants and shops. Hospital Ajijic, the nearest hospital, is less than 10 minutes away, and Guadalajara is less than an hour away.