“The house is beautiful,” says Pamela Ruiz of the social hotbed that she shares with her artist husband, Damian Aquiles. “But it’s what goes on inside the house that’s important.” Artists flock to the couple’s villa in Havana’s Vedado neighbourhood to feast on ideas and paella, drink cocktails and dance the night away. The parties are legendary. This room here, with its melon pink mid-century chairs and faded wallpaper that predates the revolution, takes my breath away. I can’t imagine how many cultural luminaries have flopped into those chairs.