Front Elevation: Rising from the Ruins
Idyllic surroundings make the Riviera Maya Mexico’s newest paradise.
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Mexico’s Riviera Maya has all one would expect from a Caribbean destination—turquoise waters, white-sand beaches, and subtropical climes. The similarities end, however, with Mexico’s jungles, which contain ancient Mayan ruins, spider monkeys, and freshwater cenotes (swimmable sinkholes and underground rivers that the Mayans believed accessed the underworld). Only a decade ago, the region, which is situated along the coastline of the Yucatán Peninsula, 11 miles south of Cancún, was little more than a stopover to the island of Cozumel, consisting of dirt roads and about a half dozen unknown fishing villages. Today, the Riviera Maya is internationally known, offering some of the world’s most highly sought-after real estate."In the early 1990s, people were looking for an alternative to Cancún and started venturing south to the smaller towns," says Isidro Beccar-Varela, who, as senior director of sales and marketing for Playground Destination Properties, oversees residential sales at the newly opened Rosewood Mayakoba. "They were looking for something more bohemian, with more flavor and a lot less commercialism. But you were lucky to find a hotel in those days that offered something as basic as a warm shower."
That changed in 1995 with the opening of the Maroma Resort and Spa. Located on a 500-acre coconut plantation fronting the Caribbean Sea,
the 65-room resort was the region’s first glimpse at luxury accommodations.
Instead of duplicating the Miami Beach–style high-rises found in Cancún, the
resort featured low-rise haciendas with thatch roofs and Moorish motifs. Spread
out over 25 acres, Maroma was designed around the environment, and, as a result,
not a single tree was displaced during construction, keeping its natural beauty
intact. Thus began the Riviera Maya’s ascent as an upscale, ecologically minded
destination.
Last year, the government passed a series of building laws to
protect the region’s coastal mangroves, which feed the Great Mayan Reef (the
world’s second largest barrier reef). "In the past, developers destroyed
everything. Now we build off-site, so pollutants don’t run off into the water,"
explains Orlando Arroyo, who began his career in the early 1970s developing
Cancún. He is now the CEO of Tres
Ríos, an eco-sensitive resort under construction
on 326 acres of land containing three natural rivers and nine swimmable cenotes.
"We truck the pieces in and assemble them so that none of the buildings are
actually touching the ground—instead they sit up on pilings like a pier."
Spanning 81 miles, the Riviera Maya stretches along the coast
through several small and midsize towns, from Puerto Morelos in the north, to
Playa del Carmen, Akumal, and Tulum in the south. "Twenty years ago, the premium
location was the Playacar area, with homes on the beach and around the golf
course," says Laura Zapata, president of the National Mexican Association of
Professional Realtors. The area, she says, is still popular, with
multimillion-dollar homes available for resale, but the newer megaresort
projects that offer hotel services, situated north of Playacar, are now more
desirable.
Garnering much attention for hosting the country’s first PGA
event last year is the Mayakoba, located next door to the Tres Ríos project and
owned by Spanish developers OHL Group. The Madrid-based firm acquired the
1,600-acre parcel of coastal jungle 15 years ago with the idea of creating a
luxury complex where guests could circulate among the world’s top hotels and
experience fine dining, shopping, and a wide variety of outdoor activities. The
concept is coming into fruition, with four high-end hotel brands—Fairmont,
Viceroy, Rosewood, and the Banyan Tree—signed on and a fifth hotel yet to be
determined.
The plan, says Beccar-Varela, was to create an unimposing
development that would reveal itself slowly in stages. Only about a third of the
land will be developed, with the hotel rooms and residences tucked into the
jungle, along the ocean, and around the golf course. All of the Rosewood residences
will be accessible by boat along the property’s interlinking lagoons. Because
much of the homes’ living spaces are outdoors, the layouts will be designed with
privacy in mind; most of the lots point toward the lagoon instead of directly
onto other homes.
