By Robert P. Walzer

During Irma Serrano's whirlwind Mexican life of 89 years, she sang and acted her way to fame, ran a bawdy nightclub, pilloried the ruling party as a lawmaker and, she said, posed nude for Diego Rivera and had an affair with a married president that ended with her publicly slapping his face.

Now her longtime home in a ritzy Mexico City neighborhood is on the market for $13 million, one of the capital's most expensive listings.

Serrano died in 2023 after captivating millions of fans with her brash personality, sultry looks and racy ballads, earning enemies along the way.

She never married or had children at a time when Mexican society expected women to be homemakers and mothers. Instead she threw herself into her artistic and political careers.

Known as La Tigresa (The Tigress) for a film role, she wore oversize gold earrings, tiger-stripe costumes and heavy makeup with cat-lined brows. On screen she strode across cantinas in frilly dresses, belting out mariachi-backed folk songs in a husky voice. Her posters were plastered across Mexico, and paparazzi trailed her in public.

"She was a woman free of thought, of action, an authentic, brave, true woman," her nephew Luis Felipe García Morales said at her funeral.

Serrano's 21,500-square-foot mansion, on nearly half an acre, was built in the 1920s in a European neoclassical style and reflects her flamboyant personality. She has said its piano had belonged to Emperor Maximilian; a dining set came from Los Pinos, Mexico's former presidential residence; and its black-and-white mosaic floors came from Mexico City's historic Chapultepec Castle.

Listing agent Monica Colomer of Sotheby's says the house -- now owned by Gerardo Gómez Borbolla, a TV producer and friend of Serrano's -- is being sold partially furnished and comes with a large doll in Serrano's likeness that the entertainer said would contain her spirit after death.

Lomas de Chapultepec, where the house is located, is one of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods. Developed in the early 20th century, the zone features wide, winding tree-lined avenues and large lots. It is home to diplomats and executives, with embassies and mansions hidden behind walls and gardens.

The $13 million asking price makes the Serrano house the second-most expensive listing in Lomas, where Colomer is marketing another home for $13.5 million. Most listings there run between $2 million and $5 million.

Since Covid, more Americans have been living in Mexico City, especially in upscale districts prized for their architecture, culture and food, such as Lomas, San Ángel, Polanco, Jardines del Pedregal and Santa Fe.

Recently, luxury brokers say sales volume has slowed even as rentals soar, citing security worries, new regulations and political uncertainty. María de Mater De La Mora García Sainz, who until recently headed an association of 250 real-estate agencies, said sales of homes priced above $2 million have dropped by half -- from around three per month in better times. Sales by Sotheby's, the largest broker of luxury homes in Mexico City, are down 7% this year, though prices have edged up 4%, Colomer said.

Serrano bought the house in the late 1970s for 16 million pesos (then under $1 million), according to García Morales, and turned it into both a residence and a salon for Mexico's political and cultural elite.

Gómez Borbolla, who said he befriended Serrano at the Argentine steakhouse he owns in Cuernavaca, Mexico, said he bought the mansion from her in 2007 and spent years living there and restoring it while preserving her style.

"It's more than a home -- it's a piece of cultural history," said Gómez Borbolla, who has rented the house to a spa operator since moving to Cuernavaca.

In Serrano's time, the house was stuffed with gold-leafed Louis XIV furniture, carved ivory tusks from China and other bric-a-brac, according to a Los Angeles Times reporter who visited in 1994.

Her nephew said the house bears little resemblance to its earlier incarnation. "It doesn't have her soul," said García Morales, who lived in the house with his aunt for years.

Still, Sotheby's, whose video listing of the Serrano home has drawn more than 425,000 views, is banking on her renown to help sell it.

Serrano was born in 1933 in Comitán, Chiapas. By 18 she was performing in nightclubs; in her 20s she signed with CBS Records and found an audience across Latin America with ranchera ballads of love and loss.

At 29 she debuted in "Santo vs the Zombies," later appearing in more than two dozen films and several telenovelas. One of her biggest hit songs, "La Martina," a tale of doomed romance, reached Billboard's Top Ten in Mexico and was featured in the 1972 film of the same name.

In her memoir, "A Calzón Amarrado" ("No Holds Barred"), she confirmed a long-rumored affair with President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz. When it ended, she famously serenaded him at the presidential palace, then slapped him publicly, she said.

In the 1990s she entered politics, first running for Senate. After losing once, she won a seat under proportional-representation rules with an opposition party. Taking her seat in 1994, she vowed "total war" on President Ernesto Zedillo.

Serrano, who earned college degrees in philosophy and literature and a doctorate in law, later dismissed the career that made her famous. "To have fallen into the artistic environment was not my choice," she told the Los Angeles Times.

"I began singing because I like poetry -- many of my poems were put to music -- then a friend came to me and said, 'You sing awful, but you sing different.' In six months, I was the star of Mexico. It all happened so fast. It attacked me."

Through much of her adult life, the Lomas mansion was her backdrop -- a stage for private drama and public performance alike. With its mix of diplomatic history, theatrical flair and Serrano's legacy, the house is being marketed as more than bricks and mortar.

Write to Robert P. Walzer at robert.walzer@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 05, 2025 09:00 ET (13:00 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.