When it comes to blurring the line between alta moda and lifestyle, Johanna Ortiz is in a league of her own. Her eponymous fashion and home labels exalt the handiwork of traditional artisans in her native Colombia, broadening the perfectly imperfect, one-of-a-kind beauty of iraca palm fringe or intricately woven paja tetera bangles for a larger audience without sacrificing an iota of honest artistry. She earned the cognoscenti’s devotion by chicly leaning into that character with heart and purpose—reprising time-honored Andean patterns, supporting indigenous communities, and producing 90 percent of her line from her Cali atelier.
That ethos comes to life in the Cali compound she shares with her husband and where she raised her sons (one of whom is still at home)—a travertine-and-marble-floored main house that’s wreathed with thatch-roofed outbuildings connected by palm-fringed walkways, the whole thing teeming with jungle verdure. The architecture is thrillingly designed to be flung open to birdsong, frog calls, and the soft mountain breezes wafting off the Farallones, a low-slung western spur of the Andes, the elevation of which keeps the tropical Cali climate consistently clement. “It’s basically spring year-round,” says Ortiz. “It feels like a vacation home, but it’s where we actually live.”
The holiday-adjacent vibe is no accident. The property, originally purchased by Ortiz’s husband 30 years ago in what was then the outskirts of the city, was first meant as a bolt-hole. “When we started dating, we thought about what we would construct,” she says. “It was just an escape at first: a guesthouse, a pool, and a tennis court.” The setup grew as their needs did, with the addition of quioscos—loosely connected stand-alone structures hidden amid the landscape like garden follies: “We were always thinking about spaces to share with friends and family.”
The philosophy proved fecund: The addition of a dining pavilion overlooking the pool gave them ample space to host fiestas, with two tables that can accommodate up to 24 and daybeds where guests can recline with an aperitif or sink in with a coffee pre- or post-meal. The modernist main living quarters were constructed when Ortiz was expecting her youngest son. “Houses are like living organisms,” the designer says. “This one has evolved through different stages of our lives.”
In an outbuilding devoted to dining, Johanna Ortiz reclines on a rattan daybed she designed with local artisans. A Palm Is a Palm fabric (on daybed) and Tropical Safari Print fabric (on ottoman) by Johanna Ortiz, available by special order through Schumacher.
PAUL COSTELLOEven as the footprint burgeoned, the house’s back-to-basics esprit remained the same. Theirs is not a buttoned-up, tux-and-tails estate. “We wanted to create a non-invasive place where we could live and cohabitate with nature,” says Ortiz. “It’s not a huge mansion and there’s a sense of progression.” The purpose-built structures are function-driven—dining and entertaining, recreating—and have distinct characters. “I treated every space like it has its own DNA.”
Of course, whatever the DNA, each space is nevertheless suffused with Ortiz’s one-in-a-million point of view. There is her winsome way of combining the sophisticated—those checkered black-and-white stone floors and a surfeit of sleek, sharp geometries—with the utterly down-to-earth, like grasscloth-covered walls, a profusion of extra-deep sofas, ample armchairs, and chaise lounges that demand you curl up and forget your troubles at the palm-shaped, bronze-handled door. “It had to feel like a campestre house,” she says of the countryside sensibility she was after. “I am always barefoot when I’m home.”

Ortiz’s Tropical Safari Print fabric, available through Schumacher, covers the deep sofa cushions; the frames are wrapped in Weaved Basketry, a heavy raffia-like fabric also from her Schumacher collection. The antique Javanese teakwood cocktail table was originally a bed; it now holds a Peruvian vase and a portion of Ortiz’s library. The ceiling fan by Fanimation is inspired by the design of a handwoven abanico.
Paul CostelloIt’s no accident that many of the house’s furnishings were handmade. If Ortiz has a superpower, it’s knowing how to channel the anima of craftspeople into objects of rare allure and grace. “If I wanted four matching lamps of a specific size, I went to a place where they make lamps and I worked closely with the fabricators,” she says. “Recognizing their specialty and collaborating and learning with them is what I do in fashion and working hand in hand with makers is my passion.”
“I am always barefoot when I’m home.”
Johanna Ortiz
That passion is plain in the collection of fabrics and wallcoverings Ortiz designed for Schumacher, which inhabit the same world-melding vein, and which she used liberally—and to great effect—in the residence. The palm (a recurring motif in her fashion house and in her actual house) features prominently in the textiles, which flit across all manner of upholstery—daybeds, bolsters, seat cushions—in the sunlit spaces; luxuriously deep sofa frames are wrapped in a faux-raffia fabric inspired by traditional Colombian basket weaving.
The approach mines a resplendent sense of place that’s nevertheless meant to burst beyond strict notions of geography to beguile in a kaleidoscope of settings. “I was designing what I wanted and also what I could envision in other spaces,” she says. It all comes down to the seductive modus operandi of her entire inspiring enterprise. “I’m proud of my roots and the talent of native artisans. It brings me so much joy.” In other words, authentic, heartfelt, and beautiful, right to the core.
THIS ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN VOLUME 15 OF FREDERIC MAGAZINE. CLICK HERE TO SUBSCRIBE!