The walls of Casa Querida are filled with evidence of travel. Handwoven textiles, clothing, jewelry and objects arrive from Mexico, Guatemala, Palestine, India and beyond. Mixed among them are photographs of sisters Monica and Christine Martín’s own family—their grandmothers, their childhood, the people and places that came before the shop.
It makes sense. Casa Querida may be filled with transportive objects from around the world, but its story is also about two sisters coming home.
Last summer, Monica traveled to Oaxaca, where she began meeting artisans, buying pieces and mentally curating what would first become Querida Collective. She brought the idea home to Idyllwild through a series of pop-ups. “It was a nice way to gauge the reaction in town,” she says.
Encouraged, Monica asked Christine, then living in Mexico, to become her partner. The sisters had spent roughly 20 years living in different places and, between them, have called nine countries home. Christine had spent most of her adult life outside the United States. Returning to Southern California—let alone moving to a small mountain town—hadn’t been on her radar.
But the opportunity meant being near her sister and their parents. She made the leap.
Then, Christine says, came “an explosion of movement.” An interior designer, Christine brought her love of textiles and instinct for creating spaces to Monica’s foundation. Together, they imagined something warm, holistic and transportive—not simply a store, but a space that felt like a home.
The name says as much. Casa Querida: beloved home.
The sisters describe themselves as conscious curators. Much of what fills the shop is sourced directly from artisans, alongside carefully selected secondhand pieces.
Monica points to clothing colored with dyes derived from plants and insects, made using practices passed through families for generations. She describes a jewelry maker who quickly began calling her “Moniquita,” a family nickname, and now checks in whether Monica is placing an order or not. Other makers tuck handwritten notes or extra prints into shipments.
For Monica and Christine, those relationships are part of the object. That sense of connection extends to the shop itself. Christine keeps a note on her phone filled with things customers say. “I want to live here” is a recurring sentiment. Earlier that day, a man offered another: “Thank you for transporting me.”
The sisters hope to extend that feeling beyond the objects on the shelves, using workshops and events to bring people together and create opportunities for connection—especially at a time when the world can feel increasingly divided and people are often too busy to connect.
Casa Querida opened in Forest Haven around the first Friday in June, joining a cluster of businesses the sisters describe as “its own little village”. Shopkeepers share a text thread, coordinate events and send customers back and forth.
Running the shop together has brought the sisters closer, their different strengths finding a natural rhythm. Monica gravitates toward sourcing and the backend; Christine toward display and the customer-facing side. They hope future sourcing trips will take them together through Africa, Asia and beyond. “It’s a wild dance,” Monica says, “and it’s fun to do it with my sister.”
Their North Star, though, requires little negotiation: beauty, family and travel. After two decades spent exploring the world apart, the sisters have found themselves together again—this time building a beloved home from the things, people and places they discovered along the way.
