Full disclosure: the three houses here were being renovated the week I was in Mexico City, and it is only on the tentative UNESCO World Heritage Site list. Architect & artist Juan O’Gorman had the complex built for the famous couple while they were touring in the US in 1931-32, and their patrons the Kaufmanns, of Fallingwater, visited the couple here in the upscale San Ángel neighborhood in 1938. The big house and studio in the front was Diego’s, the blue one was Frida’s, and O’Gorman lived in the third house in back. There’s a bridge between Diego & Frida’s homes. This arrangement worked for about 5 years, but then they divorced.

To be clear, Frida’s blue house above is not La Casa Azul, The Blue House, where Frida was born and died. That more famous one is in the Coyoacán neighborhood less than an hour’s walk away. Frida hosted Leon Trotsky there, after helping him get asylum, although he was ultimately assassinated in his home nearby (now a museum). Diego & Frida remarried and lived in her original home until her death, keeping the complex above as Diego’s studio. Diego Rivera donated Frida’s Casa Azul as a museum, and it’s one of the most visited sites in the city. Tickets to her home and museum are essential to buy online well in advance, as they recently stopped offering in person ticket sales.