Personal Touches

Emotions guide designer to create sumptuous interiors

Happiness at home begins in one’s heart, believes Luis Corona, who, with his partner Michael Barron, have decorated their lavish two-story home with Latino sensitivity.

Following his feelings when designing comes naturally to Corona, owner of Casa del Encanto in Scottsdale and a member of the Latin American Art Alliance, an auxiliary group of the Phoenix Art Museum. Corona launched his successful interior design business from his garage in the mid-1980s.

“When I walk into a room that is done correctly, it’s like walking into a painting,” Corona says, citing a special influence in his design career. “Every room I do, it has my mother’s influence. She was an artist in her own way, but she never knew it. She never had the opportunity of expressing herself. Maybe she’s doing it through me. She died in 1986, but I talk to her every day.”

Set on a two-acre parcel in northeast Mesa, the homeowners enjoy the scent of hundreds of rosebushes and numerous citrus trees, an idyllic scene filled with songbirds. Throughout their home, angels and roosters can be seen. For Corona, the two winged images are constant reminders of his parents.

“My mother used to love to tell stories about guardian angels when we were scared,” Corona says. “My father used to raise roosters to fight, and I used to hate it (because) I loved the roosters.” One day, someone asked him why he collected both and the analogy struck him.

Corona believes his success makes him a positive representative of younger Latino enthusiasts who embrace the arts, a role he takes seriously.

“I am grateful that they look up to me,” he says. “And I hope I don’t disappoint anybody. I love my culture. I’m here to be who I am.”

A team of artists carry out Corona’s design ideas for his store and his home. Most of the furniture seen at Casa del Encanto is custom-made by carpenters and woodcarvers in Texas, Guadalajara and Arizona. In addition, artists paint canvases and murals to serve as visual focal points.

Such attention to detail is what brings the homeowner’s personality out in the open to share with guests, but Corona sees one’s environment as always evolving to suit
one’s feelings.
“A good home is never done. You always change or freshen up things,” he says. “You always find things that you like better, things that have a function in our lives.”