Sanará, the luxury eco boutique hotel and wellness centre located on Mexico’s breath-taking Riviera Maya, has been awarded a Gold Medal at the Biennial of Architecture of the Mexican Caribbean. Already the winner of the prestigious 2015 National Competition in the category of Architecture and Interiors for Hotels from the Asociacion de Arquitectos e Interioristas, Mexico, this confirms Sanará as the nation’s new benchmark for hotel design and construction.
Nestled between coconut palms on the pristine white sands of Tulum Beach (voted the third most beautiful beach in the world by TripAdvisor), Sanará’s sleek and simple lines have been designed to both blend in and harmonise with the surroundings.
This skilful merging of architecture and landscape was part of a determination on the part of Sanará’s founders – businessman, author and humanitarian Charlie Stuart Gay and his partner Daniella Hunter – to create a sustainable business practice, one that would impact the local community – but not the environment – as well as expand the consciousness of its guests.
Sanará’s foundations and structures were built to incur minimal damage to the beach and to allow for the flow of sand. All structures are raised above the sand to minimise environmental impact and to allow access for nesting turtles.
Rainwater collection systems, grey water recycling and microbe-based septic systems are all being utilised to improve Sanará’s sustainability model, whilst solar power, supplemented by generator power, is used wherever possible.
At the same time, Charlie and Daniella are equally passionate about social enterprise and have launched schemes to support its staff through career planning and training as well as creating and supporting programmes within the wider local communities.
Only opened in December 2014, Sanará, which means ‘you will heal’ in Spanish, has already succeeded in tearing up the rule book when it comes to holistic hideaways. Along with a world class Wellness Center, with five fully-equipped and luxurious treatment rooms offering a range of services from skilled and qualified therapists, and a spectacular beach-appointed Yoga Studio, the hotel comprises 17 bedrooms.
Just a few steps away from the beach front, Sanará’s 10 Tamarind Suites offer beautiful interior living spaces, individual private gardens and spacious front decks on both ground and upper levels. Four Papaya bungalows, privately positioned on the hotel’s jungle land and just 100 metres from the beach, each have a thatched palapa roof and interiors based on traditional Mexican design. From 15th December the accommodation will be expanded to include a three bedroom Beach Villa featuring a stunning downstairs luxury suite with master bedroom and separate living and dining room, with a two bedroom suite upstairs.
Created by Daniella Hunter, the co-visionary behind Sanará, The Real Coconut is the hotel’s quintessentially cool beach-front eatery. Inspired by the versatile sustenance of the fruit from which it takes its name, The Real Coconut’s rule of eating is also a regimen for sustainable living, both personally and for the planet. Dishes combine locally harvested plant-based produce with sustainable and consciously sourced protein options such as local fish, grass fed beef, organic chicken and eggs. Daniella herself has devised a number of unique signature creations, including the gluten- and dairy-free Real Coconut Quesadillas.
The Real Coconut is set to change culinary habits way beyond the confines of Sanará however, with its coconut food products now in demand from US retailers such as organic foods powerhouse Whole Foods Market. This success has led Charlie and Daniella to establish a coconut cooperative with the farmers of Belize.
Indeed such has been the response to the project as a whole that Oxygen Beach Investments, the company set up by Charlie and Daniella with their partners, is now looking to bring the Sanará concept to other areas, including beachfront locations in Belize, Cuba and Vietnam, as well as select lifestyle destinations in the US and UK.
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