Carmen Petitti owns and operates
Que Bonita in Tucson, a wonderful home furnishing store, with an array of items including rugs, jewelry, furniture and furnishings, one-of-a-kind apparel and accessories. Carmen has been instrumental in assisting Tanque Verde with some of the furnishings for the current ‘room refresh’ project that has been taking place this year at the Ranch with the goal of making more memorable vacations for our guests.
Carmen has a truly unique outlook on life that results from many personal miracles she experience first hand. Originally from Honduras, Carmen immigrated to the United States as a teenager with nothing to her name and no family to support her in the United States. After surviving cancer at age 21, she attended night school while working two jobs during the day.
In 1979, Carmen brought some items from Honduras with her after a visit home, and her co-workers liked them all enough that they purchased everything she had brought. It was here that sparked the idea of going into the import/export business in retail and furnishings. Guided by intelligence, flair and luck, Carmen made her first contacts in Mexico and started her own business in the early 1980s, performing sales throughout the western states. The Que Bonita shop came into being in 1986.
Carmen doesn’t hesitate to offer her intelligence and flair to bring luck to others; not just with the products she sells, but also with where she obtains products. Tanque Verde Ranch will be home to dozens of chairs hand-crafted by the Tarahumara people of northwestern Mexico, fairly isolated in the high sierras. It’s not easy for Carmen to transport the furniture – some will be transported out of the village by mule! Working with the Tarahumara is close to Carmen’s heart, as she looks to give back and help others wherever possible.
Other furniture that Carmen is helping the ranch with will be handcrafted leather chairs, desks, wrought iron lamps and wrought iron copper-topped tables. Each of these is indeed made by hand by craftsmen in different parts of the southwest and Mexico, each, like Carmen, with their own stories and hardships that they survive in special ways as Carmen has.
Carmen’s joy from Que Bonita has been making friends and knowing beautiful people through the store, while giving back and helping others in need. Next time you’re at the ranch enjoy the new furnishings, consider stopping by to see Carmen and her store – Que Bonita. Learn more about her work with the Tarahumara Indians and her story by clicking
here.
