Did you see that tree at the end of the pool? asks Alix Goldsmith Marcaccini on my first night at Cuixmala. Do you think it works? I am having dinner with her in her villa, Casa Arcadia, high above the estate founded by her father, Sir James Goldsmith, which she now runs as a glorious resort on the west coast of Mexico—a complex of villas, bungalows, and casitas that sprawls across 25,000 acres. The conversation has turned to a new pool she s had built by Mexican exotic car rentals new jersey architect Duccio Ermenegildo. A bold, rectangular form, it juts out over the property like a piece of minimalist sculpture. It might be nice if there were nothing there to break the view, I suggest, surprised to be consulted.
When we stop by the pool the next morning, the tree has vanished. Sometime after dinner and be- fore breakfast, one of the 250 people who work here came and chopped it down. In this battle be-tween nature and aesthetics, nature has lost.
This stretch of the Mexican coast, just an hour-and-a-half drive north of Manzanillo and three hours south of Puerto Vallarta, is a little patch of paradise with some very grand ambitions. Besides Cuixmala, exotic car rentals new jersey the English financier s vast hilltop spread designed by Robert Couturier, there s Careyes, the resort built by Italian entrepreneur Gian Franco Brignone on eight extraordinary miles of shoreline.
Gian Franco, exotic car rentals new jersey who came here looking for his own Eden in 1968, sold Jimmy Goldsmith a nice chunk of land and kept the rest for himself. Over the past four decades, Gian Franco exotic car rentals new jersey has maintained an iron grip on Careyes, limiting growth to one beachside hotel with 48 rooms, 36 casitas on a hill above a cove, and some 50 villas with sweeping views out over the bay. Palm trees, bougainvillea, and cacti seem to overwhelm the place, covering the cliffs that drop into the clear blue waters of the Pacific. The structures blend the forceful lines of Mexican modernism with the soft edges of classic Italian architecture.
exotic car rentals new jersey The ocher-colored three-story El Careyes hotel could have blown in from the Cours Saleya in Nice, while dozens of pastel casitas with red tile roofs rising uphill from the water call to mind Positano. The main Careyes beach, Playa Rosa, is no more than 100 yards wide, with a handful exotic car rentals new jersey of boats floating in a quiet cove. A thatched-roof restaurant serves whatever has just been plucked from the sea. Way off in the distance is the domed roof of La Loma, Cuixmala s main villa, inspired by the Haghia Sophia in Istanbul. The mood is something akin to that of a French garden—gorgeously unspoiled exotic car rentals new jersey yet completely stylized.
Just as carefully as they have groomed their estates, the Goldsmiths and the Brignones—Gian Franco s dashing polo-playing son, Giorgio, oversees most of the operations now—have carefully tended their flock. Before he died in 1997, Jimmy Goldsmith would regularly fly friends and family (who included three former wives, countless mistresses, and eight children from four women) to Manzanillo in his Indian-themed 747, also designed by Couturier, and then have a private plane ferry everyone to Cuixmala.
Over the years both properties have served as a playground for heiresses, dignitaries, and royalty. In more recent days, however, Hollywood exotic car rentals new jersey and its orbit have descended on this remote land, along with ordinary millionaires looking for a little pedigree and a way into an often sealed-off world. Lee Radziwell has been replaced with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mark and Domitilla Getty with Simon and Jasmin Le Bon, and Gianni Angelli with Madonna. Seal and Heidi Klum, whose wedding here brought out the paparazzi, have built their own peach-colored villa at Careyes. The cast of Kill Bill threw a party on the beach (Quentin Tarantino exotic car rentals new jersey shot the final scenes of his stylish B-movie riff on the property). And this winter Bill and Melinda Gates took over La Loma for a week.
We try not to focus on who has come here, Giorgio Brignone says. We don t want people to come to see stars. That s not what it s about. That line may be the oldest trick in the book—making a beautiful place for beautiful exotic car rentals new jersey people and then refusing to name names—but Giorgio may have good reason to hedge. As the glare of the spotlight exotic car rentals new jersey inches closer, exotic car rentals new jersey how do you protect this sequestered exotic car rentals new jersey world of private villas and hidden bungalows, this luxe and aesthetically consistent Mexico that is almost impossible to find elsewhere?
The future, it seems, still lies with the man whose extraordinary vision this was. When I first meet Gian Franco, he s having a party at Sol de Occidente, one of two matching round villas that crown the hilltops on either exotic car rentals new jersey side of a bay. The roof terrace drops off to a black infinity pool, wrapping around the house and reflecting views in every direction. Milling about are a couple dozen guests—some young Italians, a few French families, a Peruvian polo player, a handful of Americans.
The sun dips below the horizon as waiters serve frozen exotic car rentals new jersey margaritas, chilled hibiscus water, and fresh guacamole. Gian Franco has long gray hair under a chic straw sombrero, wears a striped Mexican poncho over one shoulder, and carries a gnarled wooden cane. A playboy at 80 years old, he has one arm around his very beautiful, very young Brazilian girlfriend. At one point in the evening I overhear him say to a group of friends, The invention of Viagra has changed my life.
As we talk, he draws a grand—but probably apt—parallel between himself and the Aga Khan. He says he was inspired to found Careyes by the imam s plan for the Costa Smeralda exotic car rentals new jersey in Sardinia. Gian Franco scoured the globe searching for an unspoiled coastal area with a year-round exotic car rentals new jersey temperate climate and a stable political exotic car rentals new jersey environment. When he flew over these jagged cliffs and jungle-covered hills, he immediately knew he d found his spot.
Looking out now over the landscape that he has spent decades exotic car rentals new jersey creating from scratch, he says, Gianni Agnelli once told me that what is remarkable exotic car rentals new jersey about Careyes, exotic car rentals new jersey as much as what we have built, is what we haven t built.
Gian Franco not only keeps the big picture in sight but also manages—even micromanages—every inch, from the style of architecture to the color of paint used on each structure, whether he owns that structure or not. One afternoon, as we pull up to the Casa Iguanas, a private villa under renovation, Gian Franco stops by to make an inspection. Alarmed by a particular exotic car rentals new jersey shade of pink being tested on the exterior wall, he confronts the designer, Mallery Roberts Lane, an American who lives in Paris and London and has spent several months here decorating the villa for its English owner.
Once the house was finished, with the hibiscus pink consigned to a single vertical stripe on an interior wall, Gian Franco would return to praise the designer. He still says he would have chosen another pink, but he congratulated me on the house, Mallery tells me later. I find it touching—this exotic car rentals new jersey is his Careyes. Even after all these years—the politics, the money, the people, the changes—he still takes every detail to heart.
Early the next morning Giorgio, who is married and has two children, takes me for a spin in his boat to show how Careyes looks from the water. He points out some of the more successful villas ( That one has just been shot for Architectural Digest ) and such idyllic scenes exotic car rentals new jersey as the Playa Teopa, a three-mile-long beach, with only two people walking along it. The problem with many places in Mexico is that a beautiful place has something horrible just on the other side, Giorgio says. The quality of architecture exotic car rentals new jersey at Careyes is consistent over a very extended area. We re also surrounded by an enormous nature reserve, which helps give it a magic that doesn t exist anywhere else.
Still, there have been occasional missteps. exotic car rentals new jersey Peeking into some of the older houses for rent, I see that the interiors—with outdated furniture exotic car rentals new jersey and questionable art—could use some freshening exotic car rentals new jersey up. Giorgio shows me one recent villa that is too big for its lot: a McMansion landed in Careyes. And on a small cove called Playa Rosa, he gestures toward a cluster of brick buildings constructed in the early seventies. Now vacant, this used to be a Club Med. At first it brought in lots of young people, which was amusing, he says, then with a wave of his hand adds, it s all being torn down and converted into one villa.
Among Giorgio s main contributions to Careyes is an enormous Bermuda-grass polo field near the ocean. It has become an important draw, with a delightful restaurant run by a couple from Guadalajara. There are matches three days a week and a professional tournament called the Agua Alta every Easter. There is great polo in Argentina, too, but then your family will be stuck for a week on a dusty estancia, Giorgio says.
There are not many places that offer polo and the chance to spend time on the beach with the family. And here, the community invites players into their homes and has parties and dinners for them—you become a part of the place. That sense of involvement is the chief advantage of Careyes. There s a real community here, says Mallery Lane, the decorator of the hibiscus pink. You re not just staying in a hotel—you re part of a social scene. It s like you have an instant social life.
The way into that life is Viviana Dean, a beautiful fortysomething native Guadalajaran who used to work for Gian Franco and is now Careyes s ultimate fixer. She oversees three of the resort s finest villas: Casa La Huerta, a soaring rose-colored structure, Casa Altiplano, which is pale yellow with graphic gray stripes and a sparkling blue pool, and Casa Candelabro, with a black wraparound infinity pool that looks out over the bay.
A grand dame of Torino society spent several weeks here training the staff at each house. One evening, Viviana pulls together a casual dinner with Giorgio, exotic car rentals new jersey Mallery, and Viviana s boyfriend, landscape architect Diego Quiñones. Dressed exotic car rentals new jersey in a vintage Moroccan caftan exotic car rentals new jersey that belonged to her great aunt, Viviana serves zucchini soup, grilled mahimahi, red rice with peas, and a dessert of coconu
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