Today we’d like to introduce you to Alicia Robleto.
Hi Alicia, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, let’s briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today.
The arts have enamored me since my early youth, so the creative world has been fundamentally a life-long passion of mine. At 3 years old, I started dancing in performing arts and went semi-pro in my teens. Performing arts opened me up to the world of being on stage and the enlightening defusion of various cultures and people I encountered. Having serious discipline at such an early age gave me deep creative roots and triggered my young imagination to develop my creative persona inside.
Being from Nicaragua, I grew up in a conservative Latin culture. In Nicaragua, I went to a German school from 1st to 7th grade and then suddenly juxtapositioned into an American school where I had to learn proficiency in English quickly. Being with different nationalities allowed me to start my creative “palette,” mixing with other cultures. I was always an open-minded and curious young girl; when I was 16, I signed up for a Foundations of Design course at Parsons School of Design in New York City and went for a summer there. That experience ignited my “aha” moment of realization that “Design is what I want to do for the rest of my life!” I remember so vividly how that specific experience changed my life in determining my future, as I knew right then, at 16 years old, that I wanted to become an interior designer. I was in New York City by myself for a month. I remember I would eat lunch with teachers that I didn’t know, but I loved that I was immersed in that creative world with so many people from various backgrounds. I would ask them endless questions about design and their lives in general, which nurtured and fueled my creative journey.
I went to study Interior Design at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL, where I met my husband, who was also looking for design (we were both 19 then). After the first year in Ringling, I moved to Madrid, Spain, where I completed my Interior Design Career and lived almost a decade there, all my 20s. My soon-to-be husband also joined me in Spain, where we were able to both grow and experience in symbiotic harmony the world of European design. Having someone who shares similar interests helps you feed off each other and allows for confidence and creative risk-taking, which is essential to creative development. I had the chance to start working at a small but high-end architectural studio in Madrid. The studio was a fantastic super high-end architectural firm that had top-notch private resident clients, in addition to top-tier commercial and retail brand projects such as UBS banks, Caja Madrid bank, and retail stores such as Loropiana, Gucci, Dolce and Gabanna & Hugo Boss. I was always happy, passionate, and excited to be part of that world, especially those high-end spaces. After a year in the studio, I became the lead designer and worked as the right hand of the master architect studio owner. After several years, she realized that I wanted to have my studio and clients in the high-end interior design field.
After Spain, I moved back to Nicaragua, where I offered my services as an Interior Designer to the first Luxury Coastal Resort in Nicaragua (Mukul). It was a real boots-on-the-ground experience, carving an elite luxury resort out of a virgin cliff-studded beachfront! We built a 5-star resort from the ground up; the project sits on a majestic sweep of Nicaragua’s Pacific Emerald Coast. It has a unique vision; it is both epic and intimate. Building on the beach in Nicaragua should be taken seriously, as it had never been done on that scale in the country. One of the most rewarding experiences I have had in my design career has been experiencing that project from dirt to becoming one of the most extraordinary and open-air luxury beach resorts in the world, winning the best spa in the world in 2014.
While completing that resort project, I got pregnant with my first son. Unfortunately, we had a tough experience since he was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, which is a rare condition caused by a combination of four heart defects that are present at birth. Because this was very difficult to follow up in Nicaragua, we had to move to the US to follow his treatment in Orlando, FL, where my husband’s family lives. We created 2 companies, Hornethead Design Group (our Interior design and branding company) and BRINY (A performance-engineered marine apparel company). I kept working with my Nicaraguan clients doing interior design projects (while taking care of my son’s heart treatment), and I also landed quite a few projects in Florida. Two years later, we moved to Stuart, FL, and I got pregnant with my second child. Then, we had to decide whether we should keep our headquarters here in the USA or move the studio headquarters to Nicaragua, where artisan craftsmanship is accessible, and we can grow the business in unique ways. We decided to move back.
In Managua, we quickly established our design office with 12 employees in an excellent double-story studio space with a great design vibe. We had a concept store downstairs with some of my signatures. Alicia Robleto designed furniture lines and curated art and sculptures by talented local artists in a fusion of other excellent design-oriented products. It was the first concept store in Managua, fusing many different types of products and brands; we named it “the concept store.” On the upstairs, we had our brand team and the architectural design team. Unfortunately, after a few years, Nicaragua went into a severe social-political crisis, and we had to close the studio in June; regardless of the difficulties, we kept doing projects and operations all remotely with the team. In 2019, we moved and reopened the physical studio in a beachfront township in Nicaragua. Let me say that it was one of the most memorable moments we had as a family and professionally. It is a small, tight-knit beach community in Hacienda Iguana, featuring two world-class surf breaks and a surf meca, where surfers worldwide come and experience the emerald coast vibes. After a year of living there, we invested in a beachfront condo and opened a retail store with our other business brand, BRINY.
In October 2021, my husband received a call with no good news that his brother passed away. We then all came to Orlando, FL, to be with the family, and we decided that we were going to stay a couple of months to be around family. Suddenly, my husband does his Zillow rounds and finds this rare distressed large property for sale in Clermont, FL; when he asked me to see it with him, I was just curious and wanted to check it out, never thinking it would be a real option for us. When I saw the 15-acre land, with two lakes and a very old Cabin/cottage-style house, I felt a real vision of what it could become. We ended up buying the property. Now, it has become our remodeling project and second home in Florida, where we also have two buildings on the grounds dedicated to studio space. I am now establishing here in central Florida, Clermont area, ready to give the best of my capabilities as an interior designer to this community. I run an interior design firm and design and produce furniture, lamps, and sculptural pieces for my projects.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Being an entrepreneur is an enormous creative challenge that I face every day. Still, it is a beautiful thing to experience the multitasking talent that you have within you, constantly seeking new innovative ways to offer a unique experience to the market. I put hurdles aside and am inspired continuously that I am fortunate enough to do what I love! I constantly challenge myself to explore a design road I haven’t done before in my field, as I feel being too comfortable inhibits creativity! Using materials in a nonconventional way, the mix and match of different types of styles that fuse in a cohesive, bold way, is a challenge that I love being constantly tested in. Every obstacle I have experienced in my career has been a great lesson to learn how to prove myself and find creative solutions. And that is what life is all about having patience and understanding that there is always a reason that gives you a deeper satisfaction. When it is meant for you, and you have perseverance and passion, the universe will provide you with a chance, and then you have to grab that opportunity with your entire soul and show the world your talent’s language without saying too much; it will speak by itself visually.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about Hornethead?
We are a product of our own experiences. Seamless experiential design is a highly tuned fusion of architectural interior design. We create these immersive experiences that inspire how we live, work, and play. We create multi-faceted, experiential residential, hospitality, commercial, and retail environments, as well as a wide collection of lifestyle product designs. Alicia has worked under her brand name for the past 12 years in the interior architectural space, completing luxury-oriented projects in the USA, Spain & Central America. As an interior architect and designer, she inspirationally creates unique furniture, light fixtures, and sculptural pieces to accompany the spaces she designs. Her interiors derive inspiration from Nicaraguan’s raw origins and luxury interior design background. She loves fusing raw organic local materials and craftsmanship with sophisticated designs into diverse physical forms by exploring textures, colors, and forms and juxtaposing architectural and organic materialism. She believes in bringing the vernacular local characteristic to each project.
What does success mean to you?
Being successful is having the freedom to determine how you want to achieve your life goals, believing in your ideals, and pursuing them. Having a purpose and fulfillment during the process is key. Success is experience; it’s about what you passionately learn. I don’t feel success is about the result; it is a matter of not giving up. It requires practice, consistency, and determination.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hornethead.com/
- Instagram: @aliciarobletodesign
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/alicia-robleto-6a1a618b
Image Credits
Hornethead. Carlos Berrios. Suyen Torres. Marcella Bunge.
