A Very Stately Pleasure Dome
Sir James Goldsmith’s Mexican eco-sanctuary is open for business.
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ShareMarch 1, 2006
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With a labor force of over 2,000 and a budget, as Couturier puts it, of "many scores of millions," the property was finished soup to nuts (or in this case, poured concrete to porcelain) in a mere two years. "Many architectural and decorative elements, as well as furnishings and objects, came from India and Europe. When all these pieces were finished, Jimmy rented an enormous cargo plane and we picked everything up at one time," says Couturier, describing convenience shopping at its most glamorous. Not that this wingspan made flights of design fancy any easier. All the latticed windows, jalis of traditional India designs, were made of sandstone or wood in Rajasthan and had to be fitted into frames built on-site from white oak trees felled on Goldsmith’s properties in the United States.
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La Loma’s outdoor dining palapa is about 30 feet in diameter and
constructed from palm fronds collected around the estate and woven together
on a full moon to ward-off scorpions—a local tradition that has proven
effective. (Click image to enlarge.)
While such complicated precision has a price in sweat and labor, the overall result is unadult-erated pleasure. The buildings are sybaritically comfortable (Goldsmith employed two full-time sewers to tend and maintain more than 1,300 silk pillows made from Indian saris that were strewn across sofas and armchairs). But what makes Cuixmala extraordinary is the contrast between the luxe lodgings and their setting. "The wildness of the terrain feels even more wild juxtaposed with the refinement of the houses, and vice versa," says Couturier.
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The embellished doors leading from the indoor living area to the outdoor dining
palapa were made in Rajasthan and imported on Goldsmith’s private jet. (Click image to enlarge.)
That setting—the land—was much more than mere backdrop or stage set to Goldsmith, an early environmentalist and eco-warrior who, in conjunction with the National University of Mexico, founded the Chamela-Cuixmala Biosphere, a 32,473-acre reserve that surrounds the property. From the outset, the estate was green in philosophy as well as foliage, emphasizing recycled materials, organic estate-grown foods and an absence of air conditioners, rendered redundant by thick walls and high ceilings. Goldsmith planted a coconut plantation of 10,000 trees and imported zebras, gazelles and ocelots as well as biologists to study the biosphere’s indigenous 1,200 species of plants and trees, 270 kinds of birds, rare reptiles and endangered jaguars.
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An outdoor dining terrace for the casitas overlooks an animal park and jungle. (Click image to enlarge.)
Thus was Goldsmith’s pleasure dome defined. And thus, by and large, does the pleasure dome remain. "Life on the property is the same as it was while my father was alive," says Sir James’ daughter, Alix Goldsmith Marcaccini, who, along with her husband and children, lives on the estate and has overseen its conversion from wholly private domain to one that offers its houses—from La Loma to the charming quarters once occupied by tutors and pilots—for rent. "There are the same rituals: margaritas, riding on the beach or lagoon boat rides at sunset, protecting baby turtles on their way to the sea after sunset, or morning visits to the exotic animal farm to see the baby zebras," she says. There are also the same silk cushions, quality of linens and largely organic table that existed before 1997. The staff now numbers around 220 as opposed to 400, but the attrition is more from the no-longer-necessary brigades of business advisers and secretaries. In terms of service and maintenance, La Loma alone commands the attention of four waiters, five cleaning women, two cooks, three gardeners, three laundresses and two pool attendants.
Cuixmala
+52.315.351.0044
www.cuixmala.com
