A Very Stately Pleasure Dome

Sir James Goldsmith’s Mexican eco-sanctuary is open for business.

text by: Andrew Myers

March 1, 2006


Top Left: La Loma’s dining room includes Indian rams-head dining chairs and can seat 48 people. Top Right: To accommodate Goldsmith’s height—and match his larger-than-life personality—rooms were kept large-scale, including the master bedroom where the 8-by-8-foot bed faces the sea. Bottom Left: The sitting room features exaggerated Moorish arches and built-in furniture that weathers well in the climate. To add color, most pieces are covered in silk saris. Bottom Right: Light filters through the many Indian jalis in the master bath, casting patterns on the white plaster and marble.  (Click images to enlarge.)

"We all decided to rent the houses three years ago, and started doing so by word of mouth," says Marcaccini. A family decision was necessary because, while trusts were set up to maintain the estate’s land, the houses were left to individual family members, none of whom, save for Marcaccini and her immediate family, lives at Cuixmala full time. So although there are occasional periods of unavailability when family descends, those times are infrequent and, because the extended clan tends not to come all at once, an alternate villa or pavilion or suite is almost always a possibility.

The beauty of Cuixmala is that we still run it as a family property, and guests are more than welcome to join picnics or whatever event we organize," says Marcaccini. A catalog of sports—hiking (with or without a biologist from the reserve), biking, football, volleyball, basketball, kayaking, sailing, fishing, or horseback and trail riding on mounts from Cuixmala’s picture-perfect stables—is available to guests, who are also free to indulge in absolutely nothing.

However, doing nothing at Cuixmala involves rigorous choice. Do you endeavor to twiddle thumbs by a pool that complements your accommodation? (The seaside villa’s pool is accessed by a 200-step double staircase, baroque in its theatricality.) Would you prefer the two-plus miles of broad sandy beach at Cuixmala’s shoreline? Or might you be tempted by one of three private Goldsmith beaches only a short launch away? "Caleta Blanca is a protected cove my father bought for the children, where the water is like the Caribbean, calm and turquoise," Marcaccini says. Playa Escondida has two grottoes to explore and feels "like you’re at the end of the world." Playa Chanela is "a long beach we bought for guests to enjoy that is sheltered by nine beautiful islands, which are now protected by law as many endangered species reproduce only there."

A life-size bronze elephant emerges from the jungle below La Loma to guard the escarpment along the villa's secluded beach. (Click image to enlarge.)

Beauty abounds, and Marcaccini takes the responsibility of maintaining it very seriously, viewing it not only as part of her father’s legacy but part of her family’s mission. "My father always wanted us to keep and manage the property, and his vision still pervades every inch," she says. "Our goal is to pass Cuixmala down to the next generation, not as a white elephant but as a flourishing business, and to buy more land for the reserve." Cuixmala sets not simply a gold standard, but the Goldsmith standard.

Rates: Casitas from $350; villas from $1,500; La Loma from $9,000
per night. 



Cuixmala
+52.315.351.0044
www.cuixmala.com




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