House of Reina
Lead with presence. Build with purpose. Love radically.
Welcome to House of Reina
House of Reina is a community built for women who are done doing it alone. It is a gathering place — for women, for families, for the conversations that matter and the relationships that last. Not a program. Not a platform. A house. And every woman who walks through the door belongs here.
The word Reina does not represent hierarchy or status. It is not about being a queen in the way the world usually means it — above others, untouchable, performing. Here, Reina means something quieter and more true: every woman carries within her the wisdom, the strength, and the knowing to lead her own life. She always has. She just may not have had a space that told her so.
House of Reina exists to be that space.
In loving memory of Antonia Matos Santiago
The Meaning Behind the Name
by Founder Michelle Santiago Walker
Reina means queen in Spanish. It is a word I have felt connected to for many years because it reminds me of my Abuela, Antonia Matos Santiago. I carry a crown tattoo on my right forearm in her memory. In my eyes, she was a Puerto Rican queen — a Boricua Reina.
She was resilient, self-reliant, fiercely committed to her children, and tough as nails. She lived a small and quiet life with very few friends, dedicating herself almost entirely to her family and her work. She sacrificed everything for the people she loved.
But she also lived within a small, safe community she built around herself. Like many women of her generation, her strength often meant carrying the weight of everyone else.
In many ways, I have lived similarly.
For many years I was caught in a trauma loop. No matter how hard I worked or how much I accomplished, I never felt like I was enough. It wasn’t until I surrendered to the weight of my pain and spoke my truth that I was able to allow myself to fully feel my emotions, follow my curiosity, confront my shadows, and embrace my divine femininity.
I am a new person without all of that armor — full of dreams and passion. I can now live authentically, and I have discovered that I am far lighter and freer than I ever believed possible.
For much of my life I felt a bit like Eeyore — as though I never quite belonged anywhere. I felt like I never truly had a home. Years of trauma and an undiagnosed neurodivergent brain left me feeling misunderstood and defective. My church upbringing reinforced that feeling, convincing me that something was “wrong” with me even though I devoted myself to following every rule.
Now, on the other side of my healing, I fully love and accept myself. I have the expansiveness to dream again.
House of Reina was born from that transformation.
This project honors my Abuela by creating spaces where women can rediscover themselves, reconnect with their divine feminine nature, and build sustainable communities rooted in compassion and belonging.
There are no strings attached.
No expensive memberships or barriers to entry.
Just community.
A place where people hold space for one another and honor the humanity in every person. A place committed to fostering compassion, radical love, and acceptance.
House of Reina also creates opportunities to teach sustainable living practices, share ancestral knowledge, and provide work-based learning opportunities that support personal autonomy and growth.
This is the way I choose to honor my Abuela, my highest self, and the generations that will come after me.
House of Reina carries forward the best parts of who my Abuela was and builds upon them with a tangible framework that strengthens families and communities.
She lived in service to her family.
It is my honor to carry that legacy forward.
Our Mission
House of Reina exists for the woman who has been doing it alone for too long. Our mission is to build a community where women are held — not just seen — and where the wisdom, leadership, and gifts they already carry are finally given room to breathe.
We believe that when a woman is surrounded by people who love her enough to tell her the truth, who walk beside her without an agenda, and who believe in what she is becoming before she can fully see it herself — everything changes. Not just for her. For her family. For her community. For the generations that follow.
Through mentorship, education, creative expression, and community gathering, House of Reina works to create the kind of support that many of the women who came before us never had access to. We are building it now — for them, and for every woman who comes after.
This is not a program. It is a house. And every woman who walks through the door belongs here.
Our Vision
We envision a world where no woman has to figure it out alone. Where the wisdom of those who have lived more road is freely offered to those still finding their footing. Where the strength women have always carried — quietly, without recognition, often without support — is finally met with the community it deserves.
House of Reina is building toward a future where mentorship flows between generations naturally. Where women lead — in their homes, their workplaces, their communities — not by performing someone else's idea of leadership but by coming fully into their own. Where the girls watching us inherit something better than what many of us were given.
Not a culture of isolation. A culture of belonging, accountability, and radical love — passed down on purpose.
House of Reina Guiding Principles
These principles shape every space and offering within House of Reina.
1. Radical Compassion
Every person carries a story we cannot fully see. We approach one another with honesty, patience, and a love that doesn't require someone to earn it first.
2. Authentic Voice
Truth matters here. Women are encouraged to speak honestly, trust what they know, and stop performing for rooms that were never built for them.
3. Shared Humanity
We honor the dignity of every person regardless of background, belief, or life experience. No one has to check a box to belong here.
4. Your Life, Your Authority
Each woman is the expert on her own life. House of Reina exists to walk beside you — not to direct you, fix you, or tell you who to be.
5. Community Care
We were not meant to figure things out alone. This house exists to hold people in real relationship — the kind where you are known, not just seen.
6. Ancestral Wisdom
We honor the women who came before us — their sacrifice, their knowing, their strength. We carry that forward and build on it.
7. Sustainable Living
How we care for the earth is how we care for each other. We believe in living with intention — in our homes, our communities, and our relationship with the land.
8. Lifelong Learning
Curiosity is always welcome here. We believe in growing — not because we are broken, but because becoming is part of being alive.
What We Are Building
House of Reina is both a philosophy and a place — and it is still being built. What you see today is the beginning. Each of the seven pillars below represents a direction we are growing in, some further along than others, all rooted in the same foundation.
Education
Mentorship, workshops, and learning experiences for women who are ready to grow — on their own terms, at their own pace, in community with each other.
Press
Stories matter. The Press pillar publishes books, essays, and written works that explore identity, leadership, healing, and what it means to live a full human life.
Media
Digital storytelling through video, podcast, and online content — amplifying voices and conversations that deserve to be heard more widely.
Studios
A creative home for writing, art, and media production. A space where women make things and are supported in making them.
Circle
The heart of the House. Community gatherings, discussion groups, and mentorship — where women come to be in real relationship with one another, not just consume content.
Foundation
The philanthropic arm of House of Reina — dedicated to expanding access, supporting families, and strengthening the communities we are all part of.
Farms
The long vision. Community gardens, sustainable living, land stewardship, and the practical knowledge that gets passed down when people gather around the same table and tend something together.
Every pillar is a way of answering the same question: What would the world look like if women were truly held?
House of Reina is built on a simple belief: women do better when they are not doing it alone. When they are truly seen — not managed, not directed, not handed a program — something opens up. That is what we are here for.
We do not lead from hierarchy. We lead from beside. This is a space built on collaboration, radical welcome, and the understanding that the women in this circle already carry enormous wisdom — they just need somewhere to set it down and someone to sit with them in it.
Everything we build is in service of that. The conversations, the mentorship, the programs, the community — all of it exists so that women can gather, grow, and stop carrying so much alone.
About the Founder
House of Reina was founded by Michelle Santiago Walker — a woman who built something in honor of her grandmother, Antonia Matos Santiago, and every woman like her. Women who carried generations in their hands without ever being asked what they needed. Women who gave everything and received far too little in return.
Michelle brings twenty years in higher education, a BSHS in Human Services Management, an MBA, and a decade of grant writing to this work. She has built programs from the ground up, taught college-level business and marketing, and spent thirteen years connecting marginalized communities to the resources they deserve.
But the work of House of Reina was not born in a classroom. It was born in the living — in the hard seasons, the unlearning, the long process of returning to her own inner knowing. She built this house because she needed it once when she was a young and vulnerable single mother. And because she knows she is not the only one.
An Invitation
House of Reina is not a brand. It is not a program. It is a house — and like any house worth entering, it was built to hold real people through real things.
You do not have to have it figured out to walk through this door. You do not have to be in crisis, or healed, or ready, or certain. You just have to be willing to show up. Whatever you are carrying, whatever season you are in, whatever version of yourself arrived here today — you are welcome.
The House is open.