1995 - Hacienda & Pickleball - Evelyne Boren

The Hacienda had begun with such promise.

Three years of planning and building had given rise to something bold—condominiums and townhouses arranged around open space, a small hotel meant to welcome travelers, a café that hinted at community, and three enormous galleries built to house art, ideas, and gatherings. For a brief moment, it all felt alive. One grand exhibition filled the galleries with light and people. Voices echoed, footsteps lingered, and it seemed the place had found its purpose.

But then, as quietly as a tide receding, the energy slipped away.

The galleries stood still. Too large, perhaps, for the rhythm of the town. Too ambitious for what San Pancho needed at that moment in time. Their vast interiors—once meant to hold art—became empty vessels, holding only air and possibility.

Life, however, has a way of circling back.

We had started playing pickleball at Entre Amigos, a space full of heart but far too small for the growing enthusiasm around the game. There was laughter, movement, connection—but also waiting, crowding, and the sense that something was outgrowing its container.

And then the thought came—simple, almost obvious once seen.

Those galleries.

The same spaces that once felt too large, too quiet, suddenly appeared differently.

Their high ceilings, their open floors, their stillness… they were not empty after all. They were waiting.

What if, instead of paintings, they held motion?

What if the echo of footsteps became the rhythm of paddles and the sharp, satisfying pop of a ball meeting its mark? What if laughter replaced silence, and community returned—not as spectators, but as participants?

Three galleries. Three indoor courts.

A new life for an old vision.

Where art had once tried to define the space, now movement would. Where there had been stillness, there would be energy. And perhaps, in a way, it was still art—just a different kind. The choreography of play, the balance of competition and joy, the shared human moment.

The Hacienda, it seemed, had not lost its purpose.

It had simply been waiting to become something else.