The style has its roots in colonialism, and in a place that hasn’t been Mexico for quite some time. Carolina Miranda has the story: “The architectural style known as Colonial Californiano is the story of ideas ricocheting between two cultures in unlikely ways. And it is one that leaves its mark on Mexico City to this day in the form of apartment buildings and grand private homes — neocolonial structures whose immediate design antecedents lie not in Mexico, but, ironically, in the United States.”