Touring the Eugenio Lopez Beverly Hills Residence

During the recent Soho House Beverly Hills Art Tour, I had the exceptional good fortune to view selections from the dazzling art collection of the world-renowned Eugenio López. Curious about the man behind the collection, I spoke with Lauren Miller of Modern Art Services, who was able to provide me with some additional details, noting that López is a “very sweet, gracious, giving and funny gentleman.”

Eugenio López is sole heir to Jumex, a fruit juice company founded by his family in the 1960s. In the 1990s, when he was still in his 20s, López started buying and collecting art. Since then, he has amassed more than 2,700 works of art by international artists, including Cy Twombly, Damien Hirst, Donald Judd, Andy Warhol, Tracey Emin, Andreas Gursky, Yoshitomo Nara, Gabriel Orozco and many more, and is acknowledged to have the largest collection of contemporary art in Latin America.

In 2001, López founded Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo to share his art with the public, and at around the same time he purchased the gorgeous mid-century modern residence in Beverly Hills that we were able to tour. Originally designed by Wayne McAllister and built in 1957, the house is absolutely classic in its space, light and detailing. When López purchased the property, he hired Marmol Radziner + Associates and Vance Burke Design to manage an update that would honor the original while making the house better suited to his lifestyle. (López, an avid entertainer, splits his time between Mexico City, where he was born, and Los Angeles, where he has lived for more than 20 years.)

As Lauren says (and I agree), “One of my favorite things about the home is that it feels lived in and not like a museum where you can’t touch anything. It feels very warm. The art is curated to perfection and does not feel overwhelming at all.” She also called my attention to López’s passion for vintage ashtrays and lighters, which can be found throughout the house.

In 2013, Eugenio López took his collection to the next level by founding Museo Jumex in Mexico City, describing it as a “laboratory for experimentation and innovation in the arts.” With 18,000 square feet of exhibition space on five levels, the museum at last provides López’s collection with a permanent home.

Heading to Mexico City and seeing this museum is high on my bucket list. There’s more about Museo Jumex on the museum website and more about López’s Beverly Hills estate in the August 2006 edition of Interior Design magazine.