San Felipe’s first Home Show, dedicated to resort
living in Northern Mexico, was held at the Ejido Agrario
Salon building Saturday, March 1st, 2008. A total of
seventy one exhibits filled the building and sprawled
across the grounds behind the salon.
Apart
from the ubiquitous realty companies and property-fevered
financiers, there were some refreshing ingénues
that filled the more traditional purpose of a Home Show
forum. These included providers of window coverings,
imported furnishings, home audio-visual solutions, floor
and roof tiles, interior designs, Nudura energy efficient
building technology, BluWood protection-coated lumber,
waste disposal, kitchen and bathroom designs, Tri-D
Panel construction, house paint, landscaping, Italian
designed disappearing screens, solar and electric engineers,
hand-painted sinks and tiles, adobe blocks, and even
a home elevator, dumb waiter and stair lift supplier.
For those whose homes thirst for the aesthetic touch,
Kathy Keane, biologist and Nature photographer, was
on hand with her beautiful work and Alfonso Arambula
Robles from Ensenada was set up to display a few of
his amazing metal sculptures.
New home owners with old aches and pains found venues
for holistic healing, reflexology and massage.
Non-profit organizations and charitable groups were
in good supply. The San Felipe Animal Rescue, Ejido
Futbol team, Casa de Fe orphanage group, Cancer Walk,
Sonshine Hacienda for high risk children, Mission San
Felipe, the Lions Club and Red Cross all made an appearance.
Capt’n Tolken’s Baja Express, a charter
company owned by Brett Forrester, has a small stable
of fast and sleek vessels. The Tenacity, his flagship,
was on hand to introduce his shuttle service to San
Felipe. She can make the run to Puerto Penasco in two
and a half hours and provides the comforts of a full
galley and seating capacity for ten.
There were attorneys from Mexicali in attendance. They
gave talks on the legal rights for workers in Mexico,
how to properly hire employees and how to avoid legal
problems attached to more obscure tenets of the Mexican
Labor Laws. Other talks addressed moving to Mexico,
buying and selling property, home building mandates,
remodeling, landscaping, healthcare, how to secure your
ejido property, and investing in Mexico.
John
and Rachel Pack, Hal "Paco" Clark and Robin
Waters, principal organizers of the event, were pleased
with the turnout. And considering it was the first trade-show
event of its kind in San Felipe, it was a surprisingly
fertile environment for local companies.
“What’s great is that everyone who displayed
managed to network with at least a half dozen valuable
contacts,” said Robin.
John said there would be some changes made for future
home shows.
“We only have three outlets here,” he said,
referring to the electrical problems. “There’s
power strips and extension cords all over the place.”
Given the positive responses on both sides
of the event, it looks like the San Felipe Home Show
is here to stay. But if the ejido salon is the intended
headquarters for next year, wouldn’t it be a good
idea if all these home improvement gurus got together
and flexed their collective expertise to overhaul that
venue? After all, the ejido is part of San Felipe too,
now that the Baja 250 is back.
The Home
Show for 2009 will happen on November 14th.
