Once the private home of Franco-British billionaire Sir James Goldsmith, Cuixmala is still among the most decadent, eccentric and welcoming of the small hotels that dot the wonderfully untouched Costa Alegre area around Puerto Vallarta. The villas are Mexican-Arabian fantasylands. Zebras and antelope stroll around the grounds. Bougainvillea erupts in riots everywhere.
Goldsmith conceived the 25,000-acre property as a home for his family and friends. His daughter, Alix Marcaccini, who is now the owner, still spends a great deal of her time in residence, often with glamorous European friends. But now she shares it, and the property—hotel isn’t quite the right word—has shape-shifted into a vacation getaway for romance-seeking couples and reunion-celebrating families.
The centerpiece is La Loma, a sprawling villa modeled on the Hagia Sophia, with a blue-and-yellow dome crowning its adobe walls. Inside, the four bedrooms and ample living areas of the main house are outfitted with Oriental rugs, mother-of-pearl chairs, ornately carved window shutters and room dividers, and sumptuous silks on the big sleeping beds and smaller daybeds. Fountain courtyards carry on the Middle Eastern theme, but the views from the three palapa-covered terraces and the saltwater pool are pure Pacific. Six separate bungalows bring the bedroom total to ten. A full staff, of course, is included. (The chefs are especially talented, and the food—much of it grown on Cuixmala’s sister hotel, Hacienda de San Antonio—is outstanding.)
The scale is less lavish in the four other villas, but the aesthetic is no less appealing. (I stayed in one as a guest of Cuixmala.) Each has its own infinity pool, landscaped gardens, and communal living and dining areas, as well as three or four sweetly furnished bedrooms—whitewashed walls and cheerfully colorful linens. Simpler still are the casitas, which have one to three bedrooms and share a swimming pool and a restaurant/clubhouse with a fireplace and billiards table.
This is the sort of place where the main activity is poolside lounging and spending quality time with whomever you’re with, but there’s plenty to do. There are three serene, private beaches (the downside to their privacy is that they’re a longish car ride from most of the villas) for horseback riding, sea-bird-watching (the property is an ecological reserve with some 270 species), picnicking and sunbathing. One of them is a white-sand-shored cove with water calm enough for swimming and snorkeling. Scuba diving and surfing can be had a bit further afield, and a 47-foot crewed sailboat can be chartered.
While Cuixmala’s marketing materials make heavy use of words like “legendary,” and the prices more than match the description (from $800 a night for a bedroom in La Loma to $10,000 for the entire thing), the vibe, it turns out, is pleasantly informal and welcoming. Dinners in your villa mean you can wear pajamas. Or flip-flops, if you’ve booked the La Playa villa, which is right on the beach and well set-up for bonfire-warmed dinners. And when people congregate, it’s clear that the place attracts a certain type of unpretentious, bohemian visitor—well-traveled folks who are still drawn by the wild landscapes and sense of boundless possibility that likely led Goldsmith here in the first place.
